From The Educational Institute of Scotland
Colleges across Scotland are engaged in a clearly co-ordinated
programme of intimidation against lecturers engaged in lawful
industrial action, in a move that is set to further inflame a
long-running dispute over pay and jobs. Members of the
Educational Institute of Scotland – Further Education Lecturers’
Association (EIS-FELA) are currently engaged in Action Short of
Strike (ASOS) in the dispute, following a successful statutory
ballot, including a work to rule and the withholding of results.
Colleges across Scotland are now threatening to employ the
inflammatory anti-trade union tactic of “deeming” by withholding
lecturers’ pay during the programme of ASOS, and even by claiming
that all work that lecturers carry out during this period will be
“voluntary” and, therefore, unpaid.
Commenting, EIS General Secretary Andrea Bradley said, “The
actions of Scotland’s colleges are reprehensible, and are drawn
straight from the anti-trade union playbook so beloved by hard
right-wing regimes and enabled by the UK government’s regressive
anti-trade union laws. Colleges are public sector employers, and
the Scottish Government has repeatedly pledged that the UK
government’s oppressive anti-trade union laws should never be
deployed to bully and browbeat public sector employees in
Scotland. The fact that Scotland’s college employers are now
colluding to use anti-trade union laws to further inflame this
long-running dispute, rather than working collectively to reach a
fair solution, is a mark of shame for Scotland’s college sector
employers and, by extension, the Scottish Government.”
Ms Bradley has, today (Wednesday), written to all college
employers complicit in the threat to withhold pay, together with
Scottish Government ministers, to express the EIS’s outrage and
condemnation of the threats. The EIS has demanded that all such
threats must be withdrawn, and warned that it will robustly
defend the democratic and human rights of its members to engage
in legitimate industrial action. A copy of Ms Bradley’s letter is
attached, for information.
(ENDS)
Further info: EIS Communications
Department: comms@eis.org.uk
Brian Cooper
Head of Communications
bcooper@eis.org.uk
T: 0131 225 6244
M: 07974 715101
The Educational Institute of Scotland
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