Further Education heads back to the picket lines EIS-FELA Vice-President Pam Currie provides an update on the negotiations related to the long-overdue implementation of the 2016 Further Education pay agreement. As this SEJ goes to press, the prospect of another round of industrial action is growing as college management continues to drag its feet on the delivery of this year-old pay agreement.
Honour the Deal!
Further Education lecturers across Scotland are once again balloting for industrial action, almost a year exactly since a successful one day strike brought management to the negotiating table and delivered the first national pay deal since the early 1990s. Indicative ballot results showed 97% in favour of strike action on a 64% turnout, demonstrating the strength of feeling in the sector and pushing aside the Tory Trade Union Bill barriers in the process.
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The Scottish Educational Journal
The current dispute is the culmination of a number of years of negotiations seeking to deliver equal pay for lecturers across Scotland, and harmonisation of lecturers’ terms and conditions. In addition to a cost of living pay rise for 2015/16 and 16/17, the March 2016 deal agreed that the top of the unpromoted lecturers’ scale would be £40,026 by April 2019 (plus annual cost of living increases to be negotiated nationally). This would be reached in three steps – 25% of the
difference between current salary and new salary on 1 April 2017, a further 25% on 1 April 2018 and the remaining 50% on 1 April 2019. The deal set out deadlines for agreements on new national pay scales and migration. Management were prevaricating and dragging their feet before the ink was even dry on the deal and missed every single deadline – despite the EIS giving detailed proposals to help deliver pay migration and harmonisation,