Created on: 03 Nov 2026
The EIS, has written to the Princess Royal and the Scottish and UK Governments to raise serious concerns over the management of City of Glasgow College (CoGC), in light of continuing industrial disputes at the college.
The College - where a Health & Safety dispute has been ongoing for almost a year and another dispute over management style and institutional culture was lodged in the summer - recently announced that HRH The Princess Royal has been appointed as Honorary Chancellor of the College.
In letters co-signed by the General Secretaries of the EIS, Trades Union Congress (TUC) and Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC), concerns have been raised with HRH The Princess Royal, the Scottish and UK Governments over the continuing disputes at the College.
The letter to HRH The Princess Royal has been sent, “In the hope that your influence can assist in the promotion of the best possible health and safety standards, and industrial relations at the College going forward.”
In relation to the ongoing disputes, the letter adds, “The first dispute centres on a serious health and safety matter; whilst the second centres on a deeply problematic management culture attributable to the senior management of the College.”
Providing further detail on the Health & Safety dispute, the letter says, “Inexplicably, lecturers who teach welding at this institution are being refused respiratory protective equipment (RPE) by senior management.
"As a result, EIS-FELA members in the Welding and Fabrication Department of City of Glasgow College have been forced to take strike action for 24 weeks.”
The letter continues, “The College, although it can afford to purchase the equipment and has stated that cost is not a barrier, has thus far failed to provide RPE as reasonable protection against carcinogenic fumes from welding.”
“The College’s stance in respect of the refusal to provide RPE is made all the more unfathomable in light of RPE being provided in other colleges as protection against risk during the same activities and despite it being industry standard.
"Indeed, apprentices from BAE Systems who attend City of Glasgow College to learn welding, are provided RPE by their employer. Yet they are taught welding by lecturers whose employer will not provide such safety kit.”
“Not only does City of Glasgow College have little regard for the physical safety of our members, but it is also quite wilfully undermining the psychological safety of the striking lecturers with its permissiveness at best, if not active encouragement of, detrimental, hostile treatment of them and branch reps who we believe are now suffering trade union victimisation for their trade union roles in the dispute thus far."
The letter goes on to explain the second, broader, dispute at the college, which centres on a corrosive management culture in the College. It also cites a recent survey of EIS members at the college, which found that:
The letter to HRH The Princess Royal concludes: “We have written on the same issues to UK Government Ministers and Scottish Government Ministers, requesting that the employee and student safety, industrial relations and Fair Work are factors of conditionality in the awarding of DTEC (Defence Technical Excellence College) status and associated funds.”
"We would appreciate any assistance you are willing to give in relation to bringing both disputes to a satisfactory resolution in the interests of the staff at the College who are our members and reps, the students that they teach and indeed the future of City of Glasgow College as a valued place of learning in Glasgow and Scotland more widely."