Scottish teachers vote to strike

Teachers who are members of Scotland’s largest teaching union have voted massively in favour of industrial action over workload this week.

93% of EIS members voting backed industrial action short of strike (ASOS), with 85% backing strike action. Turnout in the postal ballot was 60%.

EIS General Secretary Andrea Bradley said: “This is an overwhelming ballot result, which delivers a very clear mandate for industrial action by teachers over excessive workload.

“For five long years, teachers have been waiting for manifesto promises, made by the current Scottish Government prior to the last Holyrood election, on tackling teacher workload to come to fruition.

“With no real sign of delivery of those promises on reducing excessive teacher workload by recruiting 3,500 additional teachers while tackling teacher unemployment and zero-hours contracts, and reducing teachers’ maximum class contact time to 21 hours per week, teachers’ patience is clearly now at an end.”

Ms Bradley continued, “We are long past the time when these promises made to Scotland’s teachers should have been kept, honoured and delivered by the Scottish Government and local authority employers.”

The EIS are currently drawing up dates for national strike action, targeted strike action in the constituencies of government ministers, and plans for action short of strikes. Strike action is likely to begin before March 26.

Immediately after the ballot result was announced, the Scottish Government offered extra funding to make a “phased implementation of class contact time reduction” possible — no doubt a result of the massive vote for strike action.

Pamela Manley – chair of Angus EIS association – told us, “Once again teachers have presented their unhappiness at the Scottish Government’s failure to deliver its election manifesto promises. Teachers have said it loud and clear: it’s time to act. We demand decisions are made that benefit young people.”