22 March 2023

Dear Member

Our statutory ballot on the 2022-23 pay dispute is now underway and you should have received your ballot paper. If you have not received it, please contact us at ballot@eis.org.uk with your full name, EIS number, address and name of establishment for a replacement.

Please note that as this is a postal ballot, you will need to post your ballot paper in the freepost envelope provided no later than Monday 10th April to make sure it gets to the independent balloteer in time to be counted.

The 2022-23 pay round negotiations ended with no agreement or an improved offer, your employer has unilaterally imposed it – i.e. paid you the 3% "offer" for 2022-23 (August 2022- July 2023).

RPI (inflation that includes mortgage repayments, CPI does not) was at 12.3% in August 2022, rising to over 14% in late 2022. This morning, the ONS issued February’s 2023 RPI inflation figure; 13.8%. The cost-of-living crisis is certainly not over.

Rises in food prices seem to be driving inflation. 

This table shows exactly what successive below inflationary offers have meant for the value of your pay for each year since 2019.

What is the cumulative effect of a series of sub-inflationary offers on your pay, this year? If you click the link you'll be able to see what your pay on your point on the spine would have been this year if employers had kept your pay in line with RPI inflation since 2019, instead of offering year-on-year pay cuts in real terms.

To give an example, if you are on spine point 44, your pay for 2022-23 was £53,353. If it had kept up with RPI inflation since 2019, your pay would have been £59,217. That's a deficit of £5,864 in 2022-23 that has been denied to you by your employers, who have spent the last 15 years consistently clawing back money from the staff paybill by applying sub-inflationary pay awards.

It's time to stand up for fair pay.

The EIS ULA Executive is urging you to vote YES to Strike Action and YES to Action Short of a Strike on this ballot.

Let the employers know that while they might think imposition means the end of a negotiation, EIS ULA members are not standing by and allowing their pay to be cut in real terms again and again.

The employers have the money, and it's time they shared it fairly with staff.

Vote YES and YES in the statutory ballot and post your ballot paper today!

#TheDifferenceIsStriking