This marks an escalation in the pay dispute, following months where members of the EIS-Further Education Lecturers Association (EIS-FELA) have engaged in action short of strike, comprising a resulting boycott and work to contract.
College lecturers should have received a pay uplift at the beginning of September 2022 and following over a year of protracted negotiations, College Employers Scotland have stated that their ‘full and final’ pay offer would have to be financed through significant job losses across the college sector. Negotiators from EIS-FELA have made clear that sacrificing jobs for fair pay is completely unacceptable and rejected the current pay offer on this basis.
NUS Scotland President, Ellie Gomersall, commented:
"We are beyond disappointed that staff across Scotland's colleges have once again been forced into taking strike action to secure a fair pay deal.
"Strike action has become a yearly occurrence in further education as a result of the lack of sustainable funding from the Scottish Government and poor management by college leaders. Students are rightly furious at the disruption this will cause to us, but our anger is directed at the college leaders and Scottish Government who must work together to put an end to this - we also know that the disruption caused by the chronic underfunding of Scotland's colleges is far greater than that of strikes.
"Staff working conditions are our learning conditions, and we stand proudly in solidarity with EIS-FELA and Unison Scotland FE as they fight with us for the future of further education."
