THE Scottish Government has come under renewed pressure to create a national salary structure for college lecturing staff after a series of local disputes over pay and conditions.
National bargaining in further education was removed in the 1990s and, since then, salaries and conditions of service have been negotiated separately for each of Scotland's colleges.
Teaching unions argue this has now created a situation where a lecturer in one college could be paid up to £5000 less a year than a lecturer in another institution doing the same job.The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), which represents college lecturers as well as teachers, said it was time to return to national agreements.
Ronnie Smith, EIS general secretary, said: "The EIS has long argued that a return to national bargaining in Scotland's colleges will bring real benefits to further education.
"The current situation, with wide variations in pay and conditions at colleges across Scotland, is clearly not in the best interests of further education, its staff or its students.
"Local bargaining at college level has led to increasing disparity in the salaries paid to lecturing staff across the country.
"Currently, there is almost a £5000 disparity in lecturers' pay between the highest and lowest-paying Scottish colleges.
"This has contributed to the often fractious industrial relations environment in Scottish further education – an environment that is different from both the school and the university sectors, where national bargaining has fostered more harmonious industrial relations."
Mr Smith, who will retire from the post in March after 17 years at the helm, said the system of local bargaining was becoming "ever more indefensible" with moves to reform colleges into new regional entities.
"The proposed shift to this model does make clear the need for a level playing field on staff pay and conditions," added Mr Smith.
"As recent college mergers have demonstrated, it is a nonsense to encourage individual colleges to work closely with others while retaining radically different terms and conditions for the staff in those colleges.
"We hope the Scottish Government will take account of this need to support further education and will act to re-establish national bargaining in the further-education sector."
Michael Russell, the Education Secretary, said: "I believe there should be national bargaining in the college sector and this issue will be considered alongside our plans to create a regional system of colleges.
"Of course, colleges employ their own staff and ministers do not have power to impose a bargaining system on independent employers.
"That is why we will invite views early in the new year from both unions and employers on how positive and flexible consideration of the issue might take place."
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