UHI Shetland lecturers demand better pay

LECTURERS at UHI Shetland are participating in a first national day of strike action across all colleges in Scotland, part of a dispute over pay.

Unions say the current offer from employer Colleges Employers Scotland (CES) is well below what is needed to compensate for high inflation rates and the pressures of the cost of living crisis.

The dispute has been ongoing since June last year, with the current offer being 4.5 per cent for 2022-23 and 3.5 per cent for 2023-24, according to the lecturers’ union EIS-FELA.

Unions also describe it as unacceptable that any pay award made could be funded by compulsory redundancies within colleges.

“We will not trade jobs for pay and no worker should ever be pressured to accept a pay offer that will result in hundreds of job losses, least of all in the public sector,” the union said.

A second day of industrial action at UHI Shetland colleges in Lerwick and Scalloway is pencilled in for 20 September.

Meanwhile Colleges Employers Scotland said the national strike action will only cause disruption and anxiety for students.

CES director Gavin Donoghue said: “College Employers Scotland provided a full and final pay offer to the EIS-FELA and the support staff trade unions (UNISON, Unite and GMB) in June for a cumulative £3,500 pay rise.

“This offer would provide an average pay rise of 8 per cent for lecturers and 11 per cent, on average, for support staff.

“For support staff earning less than £25,000, the average increase would be over 14 per cent. For lecturers at the start of the pay scale, the increase would be around 10 per cent to a starting salary of almost £39,000 a year.”

Meanwhile a report by Audit Scotland, out today, is highlighting the challenges the college sector faces, including high staffing coast and the need for continued investments to meet the demands of the future

Donoghue said: “Given the huge financial pressures already facing colleges, we hope the EIS-FELA, Unison and Unite call off their plans for rolling strike action and recommend the employers’ pay offer to their members.”