Scotland’s biggest teaching union has issued formal notices of strike ballots to all 32 of the country's local authorities.
Members of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) which represents eight out of ten teachers in Scotland previously voted by 91% to move for strike action over pay and conditions in a consultative ballot last month.
Some 94% of those taking part rejected the 5% pay offer put forward by the local authority body, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA).
The latest move could see the closure of schools this autumn if an agreement between the union and COSLA, the governing body for local authorities, is not reached.
It comes a matter of days after unions representing council staff accepted a COSLA pay offer that gave the lowest-paid staff a 10% pay rise on the eve of a schools staff strike that would have closed schools across Scotland. The unions and their members had also rejected a 5% pay offer.
EIS confirmed that a formal notice of a statutory strike ballot for teachers will open on Wednesday, October 12.
EIS general secretary Andrea Bradley said: “The issuing of the formal ballot notices, as required by law, marks a further serious warning to Scotland’s local authorities and the Scottish Government that they must improve their pay offer to teachers or face up to the reality of strike action closing schools across Scotland this autumn.”
Last month, the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association revealed its members had also rejected the 5% pay deal, with the majority saying they would back strike action without an improved deal.
Ms Bradley added: “Teachers do not consider the prospect of taking strike action lightly, but our members are deeply angry at the continuing dragging of feet and the series of sub-inflationary pay offers that have brought us to this point.
“Teachers are highly skilled professionals who perform a vital job which is crucial to the entire country, and they fully deserve to be paid appropriately for the essential work that they do. The message from EIS members could not be clearer – pay us properly, or we will strike in schools across the length and breadth of Scotland.”
The council staff pay deal which threatened to shut schools and waste disposal services came after months of tough talking.
Taxpayers were forced to foot a further £200m every year to fund the huge council staff pay rise.
Within days the Scottish Government said savings of £500m would have to be made in the following the pay awards.
Deputy First Minister John Swinney said the new pay agreements had led to a bill of £700m, which meant “taking money from elsewhere”.
Union sources said the local authority group COSLA increased the pay pot from Scotland's 250,000 local authority workers from around £400m to £600m at the 11th hour allowing the lowest paid staff to get a pay increase of around 10% following the intervention of the First Minister.
That dispute saw piles of rubbish build up in city centres as waste workers went on strike.
The Scottish Government was originally only providing an extra £140m of funding on a recurring basis to support an original pay offer - while COSLA was to come up with the extra £260m.
The Scottish Government had effectively provided an extra £120.6m additional capital annually to fund the increase in salaries. COSLA had initially offered workers two percent then 3.5 percent and then five percent – all rejected outright by Unite - before the revised offer on September 2 was tabled.
Workers at the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) had been due to carry out a series of strikes but this action was suspended following a new pay offer.
The SQA said its new offer would mean an overall average consolidated increase of 5.9%, excluding pay progression.
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