Created on: 23 Dec 2024 | Last modified: 24 Dec 2024
The EIS has called for a renewed emphasis from the Scottish Government on its ambition to make Scotland a Fair Work nation by 2025.
The strategy to make Scotland a world-leader in Fair Work is a bold and ambitious plan, which won wide support, including from trade unions and the STUC. While some progress has been made towards meeting the Fair Work ambition, there is still a long way to go.
Commenting, EIS General Secretary Andrea Bradley said, "The EIS, and the entire trade union movement, fully supported the Scottish Government’s statement of intent to make Scotland a Fair Work nation, and a world-leader in employment rights for all workers.
"The Fair Work framework seeks to improve the lives of workers by tackling major issues such as the gender pay-gap, the disability employment gap, and embedding anti-racist policy at the heart of employment strategy, whilst promising all workers respect, effective voice, security, opportunity and fulfilment.
"The framework also prioritises good working relationships between employee trade unions and employers, to ensure the implementation of best employment practice across the public sector. These are very worthy goals, worth striving for and worth achieving."
Ms Bradley continued, “Although some progress has been made towards meeting these ambitions, the reality is that there is still a long way to go to ensure that Scotland is a fair work nation. In the last year alone, we have seen anti-trade union rhetoric and tactics from some employers in the public sector, and the Scottish Government was forced to step in, very belatedly, to stop the shameful tactic of some public sector employers ‘deeming’ workers engaged in legal industrial action in the college sector.
"This type of overly aggressive and anti-trade union tactic has absolutely no place in a Fair Work nation, and must never be allowed to be repeated. Meanwhile, Fair Work agreements, a stated condition of the funding to the college sector, are still not in place."
Ms Bradley added, “In the school sector too, we see the continuation of employment practice that is wholly incompatible with the Scottish Government’s fair work ambitions. Far too many of our newly and recently qualified teachers, the vast majority of them women, continue to face real difficulty in securing jobs in Scotland’s schools.
"Even where these teachers do manage to obtain work, it is often precarious in nature, on short-term temporary contracts which offer little or no security or stability of employment. Pay in teaching continues to lag significantly behind comparable graduate professions, and behind that of teachers in other OECD countries, including Ireland, while workload demands continue to be excessively high.
"Independent research has confirmed that, on average, Scotland’s teachers work more than 11 hours of additional, unpaid overtime on top of their contractual working hours, each and every week."
Ms Bradley concluded, “Hopefully, the recent Scottish Government budget deal with COSLA can start to address the workload issue by ensuring that commitments to employ more teachers, and to reduce teachers’ maximum class contact time to 21 hours per week, are met in the interests of delivering a fair deal and fair work for Scotland’s hard-pressed teaching professionals, and a better learning environment for Scotland’s young people.
"Making Fair Work real for Scotland’s teachers and lecturers must be a New Year’s resolution for the Scottish Government and public sector employers - one that is kept."
Audio clip on the release from EIS General Secretary, Andrea Bradley: