Teaching unions balloting members for industrial action over school cuts have failed to meet turnout requirements, The Herald can exclusively reveal.
It is understood that both the EIS, with represents classroom teachers, and AHDS, with represents headteachers, failed to meet the required 50% threshold for turnout, meaning that industrial action will not go ahead at this time.
The AHDS confirmed that it had fallen just short of the required participation levels, but advised that those who had voted were strongly in favour of industrial action. The EIS ballot, which closed at the beginning of this week, also came within a few percentage points of meeting the legal threshold, and that those who did respond were extremely supportive of action up to and including strikes.
The EIS has said that despite clear support for action teachers have been "blocked" from taking action due to "restrictive anti-trade union laws" introduced by the previous government, which they called on the Labour government to repeal "as a matter of urgency".
As a result of an SNP-Green budget deal, Glasgow City Council is in the process of axing 450 teaching posts from the city’s schools over the next three years.
Parent groups have pursued a campaign of protests against the plans, condemned the council's "deceptive tactics", and begun legal action in an attempt to reverse the policy.
Meanwhile, charities such as Dyslexia Scotland and the National Autistic Society have rejected council claims that the cuts will have no significant impact on pupils with disabilities, and council officials have admitted that the plans "may have a detrimental impact on the poorest children and young people".
READ MORE
Greg Dempster, AHDS General Secretary, told The Herald that his organisation still believes that the cuts to teacher numbers in Glasgow will have major negative consequences and that they should be abandoned:
“The turnout for our ballot didn’t meet the thresholds for action to go ahead but those who did vote were strongly in favour of industrial action. This perhaps paints a picture of the cuts having a different impact in different schools. The damage that these cuts will have to education as well as to the wellbeing of school leaders and the desirability of headteacher jobs in Glasgow should not be underestimated. It remains the view of AHDS that these cuts will have a long term negative impact on education in the city and should be reversed.”
EIS General Secretary Andrea Bradley said: “The cuts that are already underway in Glasgow are massively damaging to the educational experiences of children and young people and to the working lives of teachers, and are set to grow worse in the years ahead with effectively 10% fewer teachers than there should be working in Glasgow City by 2027. Glasgow’s teachers have shown their clear desire to fight these cuts, working with trade union colleagues and parent groups across the City. Sadly, however, the draconian restrictions placed on trade union action by the previous Conservative government mean that, despite a 95% vote in favour action short of strike and 90% vote for strike action, for the time being, EIS members in Glasgow are currently blocked from engaging in industrial action on this issue.”
“The UK currently has amongst the most restrictive anti-trade union laws in Europe, introduced under a right-wing Conservative government, which place excessive restrictions on the rights of workers to stand collectively to protect jobs, working conditions and services. These laws have done exactly what they were designed to do – to limit workers’ ability to protect themselves collectively. The current Labour government made firm pre-election commitments to repeal the restrictive anti-trade union laws introduced by the previous government, and they must act to deliver this promise as a matter of urgency. Workers should always have the right to stand up for themselves and the young people that they support in the face of the type of damaging cuts that we are currently seeing in Glasgow.”
“EIS Glasgow is currently considering the ballot outcome and potential next steps in the fight to protect teaching jobs and education provision for young people in Glasgow. I fully anticipate that the EIS nationally will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with Glasgow members and those in any other council area to defend quality education where cuts to jobs and learning provision are threatened.”
A Glasgow City Council spokeswoman said: “Officers will continue to engage with our trade union colleagues and keep them updated on any developments.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here