Higher Education Lecturer members of the EIS in Scotland are to take industrial action in defence of their pay. The programme of action will commence on Tuesday 23 October with a one-day strike.
The EIS Emergency Committee which met last Thursday gave formal approval to a programme of industrial action, which will include discontinuous strike action and other forms of industrial action.
Commenting following the decision to move ahead with the programme of industrial action, recently-elected EIS General Secretary Larry Flanagan said, “EIS-ULA Higher Education members have given their strong support for a programme of industrial action in protest at the continuing, long-term, decline in their levels of pay. Higher Education lecturers have endured three successive years of real-terms pay cuts and have now signalled that they are not prepared to accept this year’s 1% pay offer from their employers which, for the fourth successive year, is significantly below the rate of inflation.”
The EIS action should be applauded and supported by UCU members both in Scotland and in the rest of the UK. Their fight is our fight. As a minimum the UCU National Executive should be issuing a clear directive to all UCU members in Scotland not to go into work next Tuesday and not to cross EIS picket lines. There is no legal requirement to tell management whether or not you are a member of a particular union so UCU members cannot be victimised for not turning up. No less important, we should be joining our EIS colleagues on the picket lines. A victory for colleagues in EIS would expose the fainthearts and pessimists in the UCU leadership who shirk from every fight and would show that where we fight, we can win, whether it’s on pay, pensions or jobs.
Iain Ferguson
University of the West of Scotland UCU and UCU Scotland National Executive