Teachers
Most of the time I was working in education, I was a member of the EIS. Paid my dues every month for, I reckon, 30 years. Went on strike a couple of times, as required by the EIS.
I only ever had two occasions to call on the EIS for help.
The first was in 1995-6, when Strathclyde Region was being broken up into 12 separate local authorities, and it looked like those of us who worked in the education support services had never been thought of. Some colleagues were okay: they had worked in their local area and slotted into a job in the new local authority for that area. The rest of us, well, it was a bit of a free-for-all. Those who had been around longest got first claim on a job in the local authority they wanted. My local authority was Argyll & Bute, which was, as we say in these parts, skint. It still is.
There was only one poor soul working on our behalf in the whole of Strathclyde. I phoned him. He told me at length that he'd no idea what was going to happen to him never mind me, so I decided he was probably not going to be my salvation. The EIS didn't seem to want to be involved with people like me. I made my own salvation and finished up in East Ayrshire.
A few years later, in 2001-3, Scottish teachers were awarded a huge pay rise (23%) under the McCrone Report. It's hard for people who have never worked for a local council to get their heads round the system: you work your butt off as a teacher for years till staff are at breaking point and then central government gets a fright because recruitment is falling like a stone and it awards a huge pay rise. Other local council staff find their wages are tied to teachers': teachers get a rise - so does everybody else. Then everybody settles down and the same pantomime is repeated about ten years later.
McCrone was a secretive process: 'job-sizing' was the word of the day and none of us in the support services had any idea how job-sizing was done. But it didn't involve us We didn't get the pay rise that teachers got. By then, I was a quality improvement officer - and the EIS rep for my colleagues in the support services. I went to EIS meetings in Edinburgh, where we were told that it was unlikely that we would get a pay rise at the level of the teachers' pay rise, despite the fact that all of us were appointed to the local authority as qualified teachers with pay and pensions linked to teachers' employment conditions.
We were left to negotiate locally for a pay rise that would give us parity with school staff (the people we were supposed to advise and prepare for inspection - and carry the can for if the inspection went to hell in a handcart). Some of my colleagues were made mugs of: one director of education insisted for a couple of years that they all worked in a 'low-pay' authority and wouldn't get a rise. She suggested they - like her - would just have to accept that, although her 'low pay' was about 60K a year more than my colleagues'.
I left the EIS at that point.
I joined a UK-wide union for people doing the job I was doing. It was, I have to say, like night and day: suddenly, I was talking to people who understood what my job was and wanted to support me so I could do it better. That's what a union is or should be about. Not just letting conditions and wages stagnate for 10 years or more and then getting teachers wound up to go on strike.
So I suppose what I want to say to teachers in Scotland now is this: be wary. Be wary of the EIS and other teaching unions. Are your union leaders on your side? What have they been doing for you for the last 10 years? Are they paid officials using your subs to wage a political campaign?
To local authorities I would say you have to stop this cycle of chaos in Scottish schools where we produce too many teachers and they leave the country looking for work elsewhere. Followed by a massive shortage of teachers. The way to do that is to tie teachers' wages to the cost of living: if inflation rises, so should teacher's wages - and the wages of other council employees.
It's not easy to do this when we are held back by the Westminster Tories and their insane austerity policies. Sadly, the Scottish Government seems to be spending a lot of money paying for the Tories' punitive measures. You know the ones I mean: the third child rule, the spare room rule, the homelessness problem.
Appallingly, people in England go on voting Tory and they will continue to return a Tory government unless...but that's a different argument for another day.
I only ever had two occasions to call on the EIS for help.
The first was in 1995-6, when Strathclyde Region was being broken up into 12 separate local authorities, and it looked like those of us who worked in the education support services had never been thought of. Some colleagues were okay: they had worked in their local area and slotted into a job in the new local authority for that area. The rest of us, well, it was a bit of a free-for-all. Those who had been around longest got first claim on a job in the local authority they wanted. My local authority was Argyll & Bute, which was, as we say in these parts, skint. It still is.
There was only one poor soul working on our behalf in the whole of Strathclyde. I phoned him. He told me at length that he'd no idea what was going to happen to him never mind me, so I decided he was probably not going to be my salvation. The EIS didn't seem to want to be involved with people like me. I made my own salvation and finished up in East Ayrshire.
A few years later, in 2001-3, Scottish teachers were awarded a huge pay rise (23%) under the McCrone Report. It's hard for people who have never worked for a local council to get their heads round the system: you work your butt off as a teacher for years till staff are at breaking point and then central government gets a fright because recruitment is falling like a stone and it awards a huge pay rise. Other local council staff find their wages are tied to teachers': teachers get a rise - so does everybody else. Then everybody settles down and the same pantomime is repeated about ten years later.
McCrone was a secretive process: 'job-sizing' was the word of the day and none of us in the support services had any idea how job-sizing was done. But it didn't involve us We didn't get the pay rise that teachers got. By then, I was a quality improvement officer - and the EIS rep for my colleagues in the support services. I went to EIS meetings in Edinburgh, where we were told that it was unlikely that we would get a pay rise at the level of the teachers' pay rise, despite the fact that all of us were appointed to the local authority as qualified teachers with pay and pensions linked to teachers' employment conditions.
We were left to negotiate locally for a pay rise that would give us parity with school staff (the people we were supposed to advise and prepare for inspection - and carry the can for if the inspection went to hell in a handcart). Some of my colleagues were made mugs of: one director of education insisted for a couple of years that they all worked in a 'low-pay' authority and wouldn't get a rise. She suggested they - like her - would just have to accept that, although her 'low pay' was about 60K a year more than my colleagues'.
I left the EIS at that point.
I joined a UK-wide union for people doing the job I was doing. It was, I have to say, like night and day: suddenly, I was talking to people who understood what my job was and wanted to support me so I could do it better. That's what a union is or should be about. Not just letting conditions and wages stagnate for 10 years or more and then getting teachers wound up to go on strike.
So I suppose what I want to say to teachers in Scotland now is this: be wary. Be wary of the EIS and other teaching unions. Are your union leaders on your side? What have they been doing for you for the last 10 years? Are they paid officials using your subs to wage a political campaign?
To local authorities I would say you have to stop this cycle of chaos in Scottish schools where we produce too many teachers and they leave the country looking for work elsewhere. Followed by a massive shortage of teachers. The way to do that is to tie teachers' wages to the cost of living: if inflation rises, so should teacher's wages - and the wages of other council employees.
It's not easy to do this when we are held back by the Westminster Tories and their insane austerity policies. Sadly, the Scottish Government seems to be spending a lot of money paying for the Tories' punitive measures. You know the ones I mean: the third child rule, the spare room rule, the homelessness problem.
Appallingly, people in England go on voting Tory and they will continue to return a Tory government unless...but that's a different argument for another day.
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