EIS President responds to McCormac Report in TUC speech
Yesterday Professor Gerry McCormac delivered his Review Report, A Review of Teacher Employment, to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning.
Every teacher in Scotland will pour over his report and question whether the Report offers the prospect of enhancing teacher professionalism or whether the stability secured in industrial relations in Scotland’s schools in 2001, when teaching unions secured agreement with Scottish Ministers and employers on a pay and conditions package, is at an end.
A Teaching Profession for the 21 century was a landmark agreement; while the pay element has often attracted attention, the so called "pay bonanza” was largely a catching up exercise bring Scottish teachers’ salaries into line with graduate earnings across the economy.
The reason the 2001 Agreement was such a significant agreement was that it was built upon an open negotiating machinery built upon trust.
That trust has largely evaporated. The Cabinet Secretary made no reference to the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT), to teachers’ unions or to employers.
The terms of reference include "public expenditure issues and affordability”. The Cabinet Secretary took the decision that change was needed and in doing so he failed to discuss his decision with SNCT partners.
As we move forward from the Review there is unlikely to be a basis for teachers to trust COSLA, the organisation of employing local authorities in Scotland, to embrace genuine dialogue through the SNCT given that COSLA’s submission to McCormac was cost driven, regressive and managerialist.
While McCormac has resisted the demand to cut costs by, for example, raising class contact time of teachers, there is a real concern that his desire of a flexible approach to working hours will threaten the stability provided in the current agreement.
McCormac raises significant concerns for the EIS in his Report by:
i) disregarding workload
ii) the proposed removal of Annex E which details what can be expected of teachers in routine administration
iii) replacing the list duties of teachers by reference to professional standards, developed by the regulating body for teachers (the GTCS)
iv) seeking to define hours "flexibly”
v) using other professionals to deliver part of the school curriculum
vi) the removal of Charted Teacher status thereby forcing teachers to seek promotion for additional pay
The Report is clear that it is solely for the SNCT to consider alterations to the current Handbook setting our teachers’ conditions of service. That is welcome. The retention of collective bargaining arrangements is, we believe, a pre requisite to proper workforce engagement.
Despite the list of concerns we have it is important that Scottish Ministers and local authority employers recognise that change cannot be imposed but must be considered properly through the bargaining machinery.
We are entering a period of difficult negotiations compounded by difficult economic factors.
This is a challenge for all public sector unions. While McCormac has recognised that the SNCT is the appropriate body to take forward changes, there is a serious concern that the Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning who showed a cavalier disregard for the bargaining machinery in setting up this Review and Scottish employers who have an out-dated managerialist approach to changes, will refuse to negotiate meaningfully.
The industrial landscape for teachers in Scotland will be very bleak, as they are for all public sector unions.
The immediate challenge will be to protect our bargaining machinery and our members from change imposed from above.