Teachers are to be balloted on strike action over “crippling” workload, with union leaders saying that the Scottish government and councils have “dithered” over a promise made in 2021 to cut class-contact time.
The move to a statutory industrial action ballot was agreed unanimously at a special meeting of the EIS teaching union’s executive committee today.
It marks an escalation of teachers’ dispute with the Scottish government and local authorities’ body Cosla over the failure to deliver a 2021 SNP manifesto commitment to cut teachers’ weekly class-contact time by 90 minutes.
‘Unsustainable’ teacher workload
EIS general secretary Andrea Bradley said that “unfair, unhealthy and unsustainable levels of teacher workload” had been “plaguing teachers’ professional and personal lives for years”.
She added that staff had shown huge patience despite “continuing to toil under excessive workload burdens”.
The EIS went into formal dispute over the issue in February after a deadline for a “tangible plan” for delivering the class-contact time change was not met.
Ms Bradley said: “We are now in the fifth year since the current Scottish government administration made a manifesto promise to address crippling teacher workload, after years of knowing about and acknowledging the seriousness of it, by reducing teachers’ maximum class-contact time to 21 hours per week [from 22.5 hours].
“During this time, teachers have shown divine patience, while continuing to toil under excessive workload burdens, and thousands more teachers are without permanent contracts and out of work or underemployed as the Scottish government and Cosla have continually dithered, delayed and disagreed with one another over delivery of this essential commitment.”
She added: “The unanimous agreement by the EIS executive committee confirms that teachers’ patience on this matter is now more than spent and we will now move ahead with a statutory ballot for industrial action.”
‘Repeated obfuscation’
Ms Bradley said: “It is simply unacceptable that the Scottish government has failed to deliver. The repeated obfuscation from Cosla, representing teachers’ employers, has only made the situation worse.
“Meanwhile, teachers in Scotland continue to work the equivalent of a day-and-a-half extra each week, unpaid, as they try to get everything done that needs to be done.”
She said the ballot could only be avoided by the Scottish government and councils “keeping their commitments to reduce teachers’ workload by reducing class-contact time”.
The Scottish government and Cosla have been contacted for comment.
The EIS statutory ballot will open on Wednesday 12 November and close on Wednesday 14 January. As a result of UK trade union laws, it will be a postal ballot only.
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