School gates are closed across Renfrewshire today as teachers stage their first strike for 40 years.
Picket lines were set up at the local authority’s 62 schools this morning as teachers’ chants of a 10 per cent rise echoed in communities everywhere.
The walkout was staged by the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) – the latest public sector union to take industrial action in a dispute over pay.
It comes months after union bosses rejected a proposed five per cent uplift in wages proposed by the Scottish Government and council body COSLA.
That was increased to an offer of 6.8 per cent for the lowest-paid teachers on Tuesday evening.
But the EIS says this only applies to one fifth of the workforce.
Speaking as the strike got underway across Scotland, EIS general secretary Andrea Bradley said: “We really did not want to be in this position, and have engaged constructively in talks for many months, but have been forced into this strike by the inaction of the Scottish Government and COSLA who have refused to make any improvement to a pay offer that was roundly rejected by teachers three months ago.
“The result of all their weeks and months of talk of finding additional funds, and their supposed commitment to a fair deal for teachers, was a proposal that improved the average value of the offer to teachers from five per cent to 5.07 per cent.
“Their much self-lauded ‘generous and progressive’ offer is actually worth, on average, an extra 71 pence per week to Scotland’s teachers compared to the previously rejected offer.
“For most teachers, there is no improvement at all, as 80 per cent of teachers are still being offered five per cent.
“For the majority of those in management positions, such as head teachers and deputes, this offer would give them less than the previously rejected offer.”
Ms Bradley added: “Scotland’s teachers have reacted with great anger to this latest offer, and to the political machinations and spin from the Scottish Government and COSLA in their attempts to sell this is a new, and improved, offer.
“It is not a new offer, simply a lazy reheating of the offer that our members have already rejected.
“It is not progressive but divisive, seeking to pit newly-qualified teachers against experienced teachers and class teachers against those in promoted posts.
“Such a pathetic, divisive offer will never be acceptable to the EIS or to Scotland’s teachers.
"And Scotland’s teachers will be out in force today – on picket lines outside schools and at pay campaign rallies across Scotland – to demonstrate clearly their outrage and their determination to secure a much improved, genuinely fair pay settlement from COSLA and the Scottish Government.”
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