Education Correspondent
TEACHERS' union representatives and their local authority employers
are deadlocked over new pay scales and conditions for the 1990s after
the rapid breakdown of talks yesterday.
The teachers' unions unanimously rejected the local authorities'
proposals and asked for their withdrawal. ''They are effectively dead,''
the general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland, Mr Jim
Martin, said.
But the leader of the employers' side, Councillor Elizabeth Maginnis,
said: ''We are not going to withdraw the proposals. They represent the
best way forward for meeting the challenges of the nineties.''
They were presented to the sub-committee of the Scottish Joint
Negotiating Committee which has the task of producing salary scales and
conditions of service which will retain teachers in the profession,
encourage graduates to become teachers, address workload, and meet the
changing needs of education and the way it is run.
The management wants to replace national negotiation with local
flexibility in salary structures and working conditions. It seeks to
give authorities discretion over salary scales for senior staff and put
decision-making powers into their, and heads', hands.
The teachers' unions have also rejected the proposal to introduce an
all-inclusive 35-hour week, with heads having discretion over time not
spent in contact with classes.
They accuse management of seeking to lay down rules about how teachers
spend their working week in an unrealistic way that will do nothing to
improve morale.
The EIS, the main teachers' union, yesterday presented management with
the results of a survey of its members' views of the proposals. Mr
Martin said it represented about 75% of EIS teachers and showed they
also rejected the plans.
He said: ''We told management we believed that workload would be a
priority for the Government and we would pursue it with the
Government.''
The Scottish Education Minister, Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, has
begun an unofficial review of teacher workload and Mr Martin said he
would receive detailed evidence from the EIS this month.
The EIS leader said the teachers' side believed there was a problem
with workload which needed to be addressed while the employers believed
there was a problem of managing the workforce which needed to be
addressed.
Councillor Maginnis said: ''There must be very real concern about the
lack of alternative proposals from the teachers' side and about our
proposals not being taken seriously.
''I am very clear that the way forward is not for plant bargaining but
that we must have a national framework for negotiation that can deliver
changes in conditions and appropriate salary structures.
''We have reached deadlock. Unless the teachers are seriously saying
they want to negotiate with the Minister, and I do not think they are,
at some point they will have to come back and discuss the issues on the
table.''
She said management had agreed to establish a working party to examine
bureaucracy in the classroom to try to reduce the paperwork for teachers
in recording results.
At present teachers' salaries and conditions are negotiated annually
in the SJNC.
' We are not going to withdraw the proposals '
Elizabeth Maginnis
' They are effectively dead '
Jim Martin
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