Created on: 05 Dec 2025
We are a campaigning union and we win when we act!
We are a campaigning union. We are active. We determine our goals and campaign together to achieve our goals.
After we achieve our wins, we use the campaigning skills and experience we have to press on for more – for the advancement of teachers and for sound learning.
Successful campaigning is not a spectator sport for members, watching activists and staff work. Successful campaigning needs all members to be activists.
We have been campaigning for reduced weekly class contact time since 2019 and it led to the SNP adopting it as a manifesto promise and then as part of its programme for government.
The Scottish Government tried to quietly drop the weekly class contact reduction and 3,500 extra teachers promises, but our campaigning stopped that.
The Scottish Government only two weeks ago committed itself to “delivering reduced class contact time”, but, going to the media first with a bunch of unrelated ‘proposals’, this was classic “smoke and mirrors” and our campaign continues to hold them to account – to hold them to the promises they made to the electorate, including teachers and parents.
Our strategy is to make teaching a healthy, fulfilling and sustainable long-term career that attracts and retains staff – as well as supporting better pupil outcomes.
Meaningful improvements don’t happen by themselves; they happen when we campaign and work for them.
This Scottish government has shown that it only responds to workers acting together; that is the EIS strength.
In this campaign, we are asking members to vote for action – and to be willing to take industrial action if necessary. It is a last resort but this is what the Scottish Government has forced us to in order to deliver its manifesto promises.
Standing together by voting for industrial action and taking action is sometimes the only way to win our campaigns. Look what we have achieved in recent years from balloting and, if necessary, striking:
When EIS members act, it has positive outcomes.
We need to work together to win this workload dispute so that every teacher gains some extra time every week. If we do nothing, then nothing will happen.
We need to take responsibility and make this change happen; please play your part and vote YES and YES in the two-question workload ballot, post it today, and please encourage your colleagues to vote!