Perils of pay deal

Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the EIS, has declared that teachers are “exhausted by workload”, (“Teachers step up drive to cut workload” 6 February). How does he square this with his union’s stance on the pay proposals under negotiation? As I understand it, part of the exchange for a 1 per cent pay rise other public workers have been awarded without strings is the removal of Appendix 2.6 from teachers’ conditions of service.

This protects them from having to undertake a raft of administrative and non-teaching duties and in its place would be an as-yet unpublished “statement on teacher professionalism”. The suspicion is that this change will simply increase the workload of teachers who, in Flanagan’s own words, are “stressed to the eyeballs by excessive demands”.

Confusingly, the EIS is recommending acceptance of the deal. I urge members to reject it.

Brian Hogg

Sanda Street

Glasgow