Edinburgh College workers plan indefinite strikes

Submitted by AWL on 3 February, 2014 - 1:15

Lecturers at Edinburgh's largest college plan indefinite strike action to stop attacks on their conditions at work.

Members of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) have announced an escalated programme of strikes, beginning with a strike on 6 February (coinciding with the national Higher Education workers' strike in their pay dispute), followed by two days the following week, and three days each week after that. Their union is offering strike pay at a rate of 50% of normal salary for all strikes after 6 February.

The lecturers' strike ballot returned a 92% majority for strikes, and the escalating programme of action was unanimously agreed by the local EIS branch committee.

The immediate background to the dispute is workers' rejection of a 3% pay offer, but union activists say the strike is about a wider range of issues relating to pay and conditions resulting from the merger of Stevenson College, Jewel and Esk College, and Edinburgh's Telford College which formed the institution in October 2012.

Management's pay offer came with significant strings attached, including the abolition of a maximum level of contact hours guaranteed under previous terms. Penny Gower, EIS branch secretary, said:

"If we are unsuccessful in our attempt to stop management from abolishing our class contact maximum, lecturers are left facing potential 56-hour working weeks, including 35 hours’ class contact and their associated hours of preparation and marking at times of management’s choosing. [This means that] the education service we provide would suffer."

The workers have launched an online petition to build support for their dispute, which can be signed here.

For more information, see the EIS branch's website, here.

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