Colleges renew plea to lecturers to end pay strike

Scottish colleges are making a renewed plea to lecturers to end a long-running pay strike.

The dispute stems from the pay rise lecturers were due in 2022.

Members of the EIS FELA union have been on strike for four days every week over the past month.

Colleges claim support for the strike is slipping with the number of lecturers taking part in action falling.

The union said it had showed that it was willing to negotiate “but there was no movement in return from the employers”.

It is now re-balloting its members for a mandate to continue with action after the summer holidays.

But colleges claim the dispute is now, in effect, over the pay rise lecturers will get in 2025 – not what they would get just now if the dispute is settled.

The EIS FELA says it is also worried that colleges could have to cut jobs or services to pay for the current offer.

Gavin Donoghue, director of College Employers Scotland, said people will be “rightly confused and frustrated that the EIS-FELA is choosing to jeopardise students’ futures through industrial action in June 2024”.

He added: “Employers want to get pay rises into lecturers’ pockets as soon as possible, especially as the summer holiday period approaches.

“The quickest way for this to happen is for the EIS-FELA to ballot its members on the fair and substantial pay offer which is on the table.

“It is clear that the vast majority of Scotland’s college lecturers have little enthusiasm for strikes. Therefore, employers urge the trade union to suspend all industrial action, including the resulting boycott, while any ballot of their members is held.”

The pay offer would see lecturers get a rise worth £5,000 in total – this covers the pay offers for 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25. Lecturers are also now being offered a pay rise worth 3% in the 2025-26 academic year.

The EIS FELA union recently made a four-year pay claim, which included the £5,000 three-year figure.

Colleges insist the number of lecturers taking part in strikes has been falling – saying 47% took part in a national strike last September but only 25% went on strike last Friday.

The union said the latest round of talks with college bosses had stalled “despite the EIS-FELA further reducing their claim for year four”.

Garry Ross, the union’s national officer for further education, said: “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.”

The Scottish government has previously told colleges it will not provide them with more money for pay deals.