Created on: 21 Jun 2024
The Educational Institute of Scotland Further Education Lecturer Association again met with College Employers Scotland today to discuss the revised four year pay claim in an attempt to end their long running dispute.
Although discussions held last week had offered some progress from both sides, the college employers (CES) attended today’s meeting unable to improve the offer tabled last week, claiming that any further funding of a pay deal would need to come from the Scottish Government. The EIS-FELA showed that it was willing to negotiate but there was no movement in return from the employers.
Garry Ross, National Officer for Further Education, said “It is extremely disappointing that discussions finished today with no movement from College Employers Scotland, despite the EIS-FELA further reducing their claim for year four. College employers have maintained that they cannot move beyond their current offer without assurances from the Scottish Government that they will receive funding for this.
“Year four of our claim was introduced in order to break the deadlock between both sides and was welcomed by the Scottish Government, who credited EIS-FELA for initiating this. Yet, we now seem to be in the same position that we were in when discussing a three-year deal, which is that CES have reached a position where they say that they are unable to improve their offer without additional Scottish Government funding and, thus, negotiations have stalled.
“For CES to say that lecturing staff would be £2,000 better off with this deal than they would under PSPP misses the fact that the pay settlements that other public sector workers received in 2022/23 and 2023/24 were above PSPP, and that there was record inflation for much of the period.”