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NEWS • VIEWS • INFORMATION • ADVICE


Historic move strengthens campaign to protect pay and conditions in Scotland.

The NASUWT has significantly strengthened its position to represent members in the fight to challenge the current attack on teachers’ pay and conditions in Scotland, after securing a full seat in its own right on the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT), the body that makes recommendations on teachers’ pay and conditions.

This not only corrects a long standing injustice but also reflects the growth and standing of the NASUWT in Scotland.

The NASUWT will use its position on the SNCT to continue to campaign to challenge the completely unjustified changes to teachers’ pay and conditions being imposed by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) and the Scottish Government. Employers are seeking to impose:

A two year pay freeze;
Remove lifetime salary conservation (safeguarding);
Cut the salary of supply teachers, treating them as second- class teachers;
Alter annual leave entitlements for workers returning from maternity leave;
Suspend pay progression for teachers on the Chartered Teachers Scheme and;
Increase contact time for probationer teachers.

The Union is exploring every avenue, including industrial action, and seeking legal advice to challenge the proposals being implemented.

With the support of members, the Union is committed to a rolling programme of strike action in protest at the plans.

The Union has also written to Minister Mike Russell to warn him of the crisis in recruitment and retention that will be ushered in by the reforms.

The NASUWT believes the plans will:

undermine the quality of the induction process;
place greater burdens on teachers;
force teachers to remain at work even when they are ill;
unfairly discriminate against women teachers by making regressive changes to maternity, sick pay and the provisions regarding supply teachers.

PUT YOUR MSP ON THE SPOT

Use the NASUWT online facility to contact your MSP directly to register your opposition to changes to teachers’ pay and conditions.

Log onto the NASUWT website at www.nasuwt.org.uk/ScottishTeachers


DOUBLE WHAMMY FOR SCOTTISH TEACHERS?

Hot on the heels of the COSLA changes to pay and conditions of service, the Scottish Government’s Review of the McCrone Agreement is due to be published shortly. The McCormac Review, to which the NASUWT gave written and oral evidence, is not expected to bring good news for teachers and could result in teachers facing the double whammy of the COSLA changes and further changes to pay and conditions through McCormac’s recommendations.

The NASUWT argued strongly in the Review process that McCrone and the national framework of pay and conditions has had a positive impact on standards of education in Scotland, and teachers need pay and conditions of service that enable them to work effectively to raise standards.

Any attempt to erode or dismantle the current provisions for teachers will have a devastating impact on educational attainment.

The Union has urged the Review to recommend the strengthening of the McCrone Agreement and to ensure that all of its provisions are implemented fully in all schools.

McCrone was viewed as a historic achievement and is regarded across the UK as the ‘gold standard’ for teachers’ terms and conditions.

For more information go to www.nasuwt.org.uk/McCormac.


Yet another U-turn

Education Secretary Michael Gove has been forced into yet another embarrassing U-turn after being exposed trying to shortchange local authorities.

The Secretary of State has agreed to review funding cuts to local authority education budgets after the threat of legal action from councils.

The Minister had sought to top-slice funds from local authorities to provide financial incentives for schools to convert to academy status.

However, councils successfully argued that the way in which the savings had been calculated was unfair and disproportionate.

The ruling marks yet another U-turn from Mr Gove, after public outcries on the axing of School Sports Partnerships, the Education Maintenance Allowance and free books for the poorest children all forced the Minister to retreat from his original plans.

Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT, said these repeated climbdowns demonstrated the undue haste with which the Minister was seeking to implement reforms.

“The majority of the public do not agree with the Secretary of State’s vision for education, which is perhaps why he continues to seek to railroad through his policies without proper consultation or public debate,” she said.

“If this Government genuinely cared about democracy, they would not seek to drain public funds of millions of pounds to fund an ideologically driven experiment, without any evidence that it will raise standards and which will effectively privatise our children’s education.”