Created on: 12 Mar 2024
Lecturers in three Scottish colleges will take targeted industrial action over the coming weeks.
With Dundee & Angus College taking the first of two days of targeted strike action, starting Monday, and continuing on Wednesday this week. Fife College lectures are set to take two days of strike action next week followed by Glasgow Clyde College the week after.
Each of these colleges sit within the parliamentary constituency areas of Scottish Government Ministers with the responsibility for these public bodies; Dundee & Angus College for the Minister for Higher and Further Education (Graeme Dey), Fife College for the Cabinet Secretary for Education (Jenny Gilruth) and Glasgow Clyde College for the First Minister (Humza Yousaf).
The targeted action is the latest step of a national industrial action campaign in a long-running dispute over pay and ongoing concerns of job security within the sector.
Members of EIS-FELA have, most recently, been undertaking industrial action short of strike since February 2024 and began strike action late last month, faced with a pay offer from College Employers Scotland (CES) which is below the current rate of inflation and is thus a real terms pay cut. The college lecturers’ pay offer is also below the Scottish Government public sector pay policy, at a time where other public sectors have seen Scottish Government intervention to resolve their disputes.
While EIS-FELA acknowledges the statement made within the current pay offer by CES, where any compulsory redundancies will not be related directly to this pay offer, there are still significant proposed job cuts on-going in at least two colleges.
Despite ongoing discussions between EIS-FELA and CES, the representatives of college employers have yet to make any progress towards an improved offer on pay.
EIS-FELA targeted Strike dates
Targeted Action: 11th and 13th March:
Dundee & Angus College: Minister for Higher and Further Education’s constituency.
Targeted Action: 18th and 20th March:
Fife College: Cabinet Secretary for Education’s constituency.
Targeted Action: 25th and 27th March:
Glasgow Clyde College: First Minister’s constituency.