Hugh Reilly: Teachers, now red in tooth and claw…

Published on Sunday 10 April 2011 15:31

EIS national officials believe Daniel had it easy when he entered a pit filled with pacing, roaring, hot-breathed lions. A week tomorrow, the mutinous EIS Glasgow Committee of Management is holding a meeting calling for a rejection of the revised pay and conditions deal that the EIS leadership are recommending the membership accept.

In what could be interpreted as a sadistic nod to transparency, the committee has issued an open invitation for any member of the salaries Committee who sold-out, oops, sealed the deal, to crawl out from the bunker at EIS HQ to attend and explain the union's volte-face. It will be a crowded hall but the presence of an EIS national negotiator will be easily ascertained; he'll be the sweaty man in the natty Kevlar jacket armed with a taser and a pump-action shotgun.

Call it mere coincidence but the venue chosen by those who wish to see the heads of the leadership on a platter is a Baptist Church. The elected representatives of Glasgow teachers are most unhappy that, seduced by a little wiggling by COSLA and the SNP government, the union leadership appears to be attempting to pull a veil over changes that were rejected by 98 per cent of members in the original ballot. Union chiefs contend that they have secured the best possible agreement in difficult circumstances but their sombre Churchillian utterances seem very Chamberlinesque to angry chalkies.

Convincing subscription-paying members that concessions have been won is a hard sell. Sure, the threat to reduce sick pay has been removed but this affected a tiny minority of teachers, given the profession's admirable penchant for turning up for daily ritual abuse at the hands of our youngsters.

The guarantee of teaching posts has as much credibility as goods purchased from the Bodrum outlet of the Genuine Fake Factory. Councils have cut teaching posts faster than bushes being trimmed by Edward Scissorhands on crack. But they have vowed to keep the number of teaching jobs at the level of last year's census, a loss of approximately 1,000. Teachers, can't afford to receive many more concessions like this.

The naysayers point out that if the two year wage freeze remains thus teachers will suffer a double digit reduction in living standards. Even before the public sector pruning regime, dominies faced problems from local government bureaucracy.

Until a few years ago, while MSPs could claim car costs at 50p per mile, schoolteachers were given 25p. Like everyone else, my energy bills have risen to the extent that I now feel obliged to offer my girlfriend a second coat when she asks to put on the central heating. The soaring cost of food is another source of much angst. I hate living a lie but when I have my kids round for a meal, an assortment of insipid green shrubs helps maintain the pretence I am vegan.

Accepting a fall in salary is hard to swallow when others aren't taking the same medicine.Bankers' bonuses are back to pre-Credit Crunch levels and many businesses are booming. The recent TUC demonstration showed that there are millions of people opposed to the decimation of public services. The EIS is probably one of the most powerful unions in Scotland and if resistance to a wage freeze were successful, other public sector workers would ask for more.

But it is the EIS leadership's casual abandonment of the most vulnerable teachers - supply teachers - that many members find most upsetting. It is demotivating for a newly qualified teacher to finish a year's probation and struggle to find any type of post. If the new deal on offer is accepted, supply teachers will be paid a reduced rate for the first five days of the appointment. The EIS has paid a small fortune for its slogan "Why Must Our Children Pay?" to appear on buses. There is heavy irony that the EIS expects the poorest paid in the profession should be further impoverished. For me, "Why Should Supply Teachers Pay?" has a certain ring to it.

Any EIS official who attends next week's meeting and argues for acceptance better have a posse of guardian angels.