Created on: 23 May 2024 | Last modified: 24 May 2024
EIS-FELA met with College Employers Scotland (CES) to discuss the revised four year pay claim submitted last week, in an attempt to end their long running dispute.
It was expected by the union side that CES would be mandated to have meaningful negotiations which would address the revised pay claim submitted by EIS-FELA. Disappointingly, there was no offer tabled at the meeting by employers in respect of the revised claim and discussion on it enabled no further progress.
EIS General Secretary Andrea Bradley said, "College Employers Scotland appear not to be approaching these negotiations in good faith and with the commitment and sense of urgency that is needed to bring this dispute to an end.
"It seems that all the effort on the part of employers is being put into threatening hardworking lecturers with full docking of wages for carrying out legitimate action short of strike, rather than working towards a settlement. As public sector employers, in receipt of significant public funds,"
Ms Bradley continued, "Colleges are bound by the terms of fair work and should be committed to proper collective bargaining with trade unions in the sector, including EIS-FELA. It is quite outrageous that College Employers Scotland and its members continue to act with such flagrant disregard for fair work, for the people that they employ and for the unions that represent them."
She added, "Lecturers have waited for the best part of two years for a pay rise and have been forced to take industrial action in the process. Rightly, serious and searching questions continue to be raised by EIS-FELA and all who value Further Education, about the impunity with which college employers seem to be able to act regarding this dispute and generally in relation to the custodianship of a vital public service."
The EIS-FELA expect to meet with employers again next week, in the hope of progressing discussions and receiving an offer from CES which responds to their four-year claim. As no tangible improvement was received at today's meeting, the planned calendar of strike action will continue next week, unless CES are able to meet with the EIS-FELA National Representatives before this coming Tuesday.
College lecturing staff across Scotland will take strike action on the following dates: