A teaching union has urged members to accept a new pay offer presented by the Scottish Government.
The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) union made the announcement it is to ballot its members on a revised pay offer that was presented by local authority employers, with a recommendation that the offer should be accepted.
Some 20 days of rolling strikes had been planned by the EIS across Scotland, targeting every local authority north of the border between 13 March and 21 April.
The EIS is now suspending all planned industrial action while it ballots its members on the new offer.
A special meeting of the EIS Salaries Committee, comprised of teachers from across Scotland, took place on Friday and it was unanimously agreed to ballot members on the new offer.
The Committee agreed to recommend that members vote to accept the new pay offer.
Subsequent to the decision of the committee, a special meeting of the EIS Executive Committee agreed to suspend all planned industrial action while members are consulted on the offer. The online ballot opens today and runs until 10 March.
EIS general secretary Andrea Bradley said: “The view of our negotiators is that this deal represents the best that can be achieved in the current political and financial climate without a much more prolonged campaign of industrial action.”
The new offer will see teachers getting a 12.3% increase by April 2023, and it will rise to 14% by 2024.
She added: “It is through the determination and collective action of teachers and associated professionals across Scotland, led by EIS members, that we have improved this pay offer from an initial 2% for the current year to 7% for the current financial year, with additional increases of 5% and then 2% within the following financial year.
“Teachers have taken strike action as a last resort, and that strike action has delivered an improved pay offer that the EIS can credibly put to its members with a recommendation to accept.
“It is now for our members to decide whether to accept this offer, and it is our recommendation that they should do so.”
Responding to the decision by the EIS union to suspend strike action while a new pay offer is put to members, Education Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said: “I welcome the EIS’s decision to suspend industrial action while they consider this offer.
“This will end the disruption to learning for our children and young people particularly in the run up to exams.
“We have worked closely with the unions to compromise and have arrived at a deal which is fair, affordable, and sustainable for everyone involved. The Scottish Government is supporting this deal with over £320m of funding this year and next.
“I would urge teaching union members to accept this historic pay offer which would see teacher pay increase by 33% since January 2018.
“This is the best and final offer possible and recognises the invaluable contribution teachers make to the lives of our children and young people.”
However, a second teaching union will ballot its members on a new offer to end a long-running dispute, but a senior figure has described the pay rise as “paltry” and hit out at the talks where it was devised.
The NASUWT said on Saturday the latest offer from the Scottish Government and councils “falls short of what teachers have demanded”.
The new offer will see teachers getting a 12.3% increase by April 2023 and it will rise to 14% by 2024.
Last week, the union claimed it had been excluded from talks between the Scottish Government and the EIS – the country’s biggest teaching union.
NASUWT general secretary Dr Patrick Roach said: “It comes as no surprise to see this latest pay offer appearing as if from nowhere, following meetings held in the last few days which excluded the NASUWT, in order to cook up this latest proposal.
“This latest pay offer provides only a paltry improvement over the previous offer that was rejected by our members.
“No doubt employers, the Scottish Government and others will want to claim that this offer represents a significant improvement for teachers, when in fact that means another pay cut for the profession.
“The manipulation of future pay award dates cannot disguise the fact that this latest offer falls short of what teachers have demanded and it is likely to be viewed as too little too late.
“We will hear what teachers have to say as we consult our members on this latest offer.”
The union’s national official Mike Corbett said its “campaign of industrial action, including action short of strike action, continues”.
Somerville, said: “This pay offer would amount to a cumulative rise of 33% for most teachers since January 2018 and would bring the starting salary for a fully qualified teacher, already the highest in the UK, to £38,650 after probation by January 2024.
“We have looked for compromise and arrived at a deal that is fair, affordable, and sustainable for everyone involved.”
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