EDUCATION Secretary John Swinney defended the pay offer to college lecturers as they went on strike to demand a cost-of-living increase.
Lecturers joined picket lines yesterday after rejecting a 12.2% pay rise from Colleges Scotland, saying the offer does not constitute a cost-of-living rise after a three-year wage freeze.
The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) Further Education Lecturers’ Association (FELA) has accused management of “using conflated figures in publicity to obfuscate the pay claim”, and is calling for a pay rise above the increasing cost of living.
However, Swinney told Holyrood’s Education Committee that December’s Budget contained funding for colleges to bring lecturers’ pay in line with other public-sector increases. He also insisted a cost-of-living increase is being offered.
Labour’s education spokesman, Iain Gray, claimed: “In the college sector there is no prospect of them finding additional resources for any cost-of-living increases for their staff.”
However, Swinney said: “Resources clearly are there because the employers have offered that. The colleges sector finds itself in a position of being able to harmonise the contracts of further education lecturers across the country, which I’m very pleased the Government has been able to secure as a policy objective and which is now being implemented over a three-year period from funding by the Scottish Government.
“In addition to that, college employers are able to make cost-of-living increases available to members of staff into the bargaining.”
Picket lines formed outside colleges throughout Scotland and dozens of lecturers gathered outside the Scottish Parliament to protest.
Urging Colleges Scotland to “return to meaningful negotiations”, EIS general secretary Larry Flanagan said: “Lecturers have been forced into this strike action by an intransigent management group that has refused to even attempt to reach a negotiated solution ahead of today’s strike. College lecturers have not received a cost-of-living pay increase since 2016.”
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