Organisation Motions 42 - 59

Created on: 23 May 2019 | Last modified: 08 Jun 2019

Motions

Resolutions

42. Council

“That this AGM welcome the continuing high level of member engagement and commends the work of activists and representatives in generating and maintaining membership engagement with the ‘Value Education Value Teachers’ Campaign.  This AGM instruct the Executive Committee to use its best endeavours to continue to plan and prosecute the Campaign until successful resolution. This AGM further instruct the Executive Committee, upon the conclusion of the campaign, to identify the lessons learnt from the campaign in order to consolidate and improve the Institute’s campaigning capability.”

Amendment Council

Delete “welcome the continuing high level of member engagement and” in lines 1 & 2

Insert “high” between “maintaining” and “membership” in line 3

Replace “with” with “throughout” in line 3

Delete second sentence of paragraph 1

Delete “further” and “upon the conclusion of the campaign” in lines 7 & 8 and “the” before “lessons” in line 8

Delete all from “campaign” in line 8 and insert “in order to continue membership engagement in the non-pay aspects of the campaign and to consolidate and improve the Institute’s campaigning capability”

Carried.

43. Falkirk Local Association

“That this AGM commend the work of School Based Negotiating Committees and instruct Council to launch a campaign to strengthen, energise and reinvigorate their role in delivering workplace democracy and increase negotiating capacity in all schools.”

Carried.

44. Renfrewshire Local Association

“That this AGM instruct Council to lobby for and promote an increased role for teacher agency in the empowered system being envisaged for Scottish Education.”

Carried.

45. Council & Dundee Local Association

“That this AGM note the views expressed by over 12,000 members regarding their work in a survey in late 2018, with workload being identified as the single greatest source of increasing stress levels. This AGM believe that teachers’ workloads have risen to levels that cause harm to teachers and are therefore unsustainable and accordingly AGM instruct Council to develop and implement a comprehensive campaign to deliver meaningful and significant reductions in the workload of all teachers.”

Carried.

46. Midlothian Local Association

“That this AGM instruct Council to investigate, and report on, the impact on the well-being of teachers due to:

(a)   increased workload;

(b)   lack of qualified supply/cover staff;

(c)    additional preparation of work for classes covered by non-subject specialists;

(d)   excessive forward planning requirements;

(e)   changes to course content and assessments”

Amendment Aberdeenshire Local Association

Add bullet point “(f) a reduction to support staff”.

Carried.

47. Aberdeenshire Local Association

“That this AGM instruct Council to build on the positive momentum from the Value Education Value Teachers drive and launch an intensive campaign focussed on tackling bureaucracy and workload.”

Carried.

48. Council

“That this AGM believe that further investment should be made in all public services and that the Scottish Government should explore further means of raising public revenues including increased taxes in a progressive manner. This AGM instruct Council to campaign for education spending by local and central government to be protected in real terms, and to increase education funding on resources and professional support services for pupils.”

Carried.

49. Dumfries & Galloway Local Association & Midlothian Local Association

“That this AGM instruct Council to lobby the Scottish Government to have free instrumental music provision put in place across Scotland, in line with the Charter for Instrumental Music. Further, that this AGM instruct Council to call on the Scottish Government to provide ring-fenced funding for Instrumental Music Services across Scotland thus ensuring that the enormous and wide-ranging benefits of Music Instruction remain available to all Scottish School Children.”

Carried.

50. Dumfries & Galloway Local Association

“That this AGM instruct Council to develop a suite of national resources to assist local associations campaign to defend instrumental music provision.”

Carried.

51. Inverclyde Local Association

“That this AGM recognises the mounting evidence regarding mental health and wellbeing issues amongst pupils, considers the mental health and wellbeing of teachers and lecturers to be equal importance and instruct Council to:

(a)   investigate and report on the mental health and wellbeing of members across all educational establishments to extend the evidence provided by the recent VEVT survey;

(b)   continue to highlight the issue of teacher and lecturer mental health and wellbeing;

(c)    Press the Scottish Government to recognise the issues and address the causes of poor mental health and wellbeing in schools and colleges.”

Amendment EIS-ULA

Delete “and” at end of line 2 of (c) and add “and universities” after “colleges”.

Carried.

52. Falkirk Local Association

“That this AGM instruct Council to investigate and report on the “buyback” clauses and/or other financial costs to be incurred at the end of school PPP/PFI contracts.”

Carried.

53. Renfrewshire Local Association

“That this AGM call on the Scottish Government to reconsider the powers granted to local authorities to introduce a workplace parking tax or charge.”

Carried.

54. North Lanarkshire Local Association

“That this AGM instruct Council to establish an occupational network for school librarian members of the EIS.”

Carried.

55. Fife Local Association "That this AGM call upon Council to urgently investigate and report back on any capacity the Institute has to provide Counselling Services to members who are experiencing mental health challenges.”

Withdrawn.

56. EIS-FELA

“That this AGM resolve to instruct Council to develop proposals to ensure that the General Secretary be elected by a vote of all members based upon a 5-year cycle.”

Withdrawn.

57. Falkirk Local Association

“That this AGM call on Council to explore and report on the arrangements and steps required to ensure that all EIS printed and written communications are Dyslexic friendly”.

Carried.

58. EIS-FELA 

“That this AGM resolve that the EIS supports EIS-FELA’s efforts to make national bargaining work and will continue to assist EIS-FELA in pursuing this goal.”

Carried.

59. EIS-ULA

“That this AGM reaffirm its commitment to campaigning in solidarity with Palestinians in their struggle for peace and justice and instructs the Institute to:

(a)   Support TUC policy, to “boycott the goods of, companies who profit from illegal settlements, the Occupation and the construction of the Wall”, which we view as an act of solidarity with Palestinians, not a dogma or ideology and certainly not an attack on Jewish communities or individuals;

(b)   Pressure the Scottish and UK Governments to call on the Israeli Government to comply with international law and human rights treaties;

(c)    Work to win the backing of Education International and the ETUC(E) for these policies and to seek to collaborate with like minded unions internationally;

(d)   Convey these views to the Israeli Teachers Union;

(e)   Express our solidarity with the GUPT and PFUUPE for their objectives for education and discuss with them ways to develop this solidarity;

(f)    Call for an end to the discrimination against Palestinian students, teachers and lecturers within Israel;

(g)   Continue to campaign for the rights of Palestinian children including child prisoners;

(h)   Campaign for Palestinian students to be given fee waivers in Scottish colleges and universities.” 

Carried.