Achi news desk-
When this crisis gets attention, the campaigns of EIS-FELA, the trade union representing college lecturers in Scotland, generally get the attention. Its members have gone out on strike, disrupting classes and forming picket lines, several times over the years in an effort to secure appropriate pay rises and protect conditions – but throughout that time, support staff have also found themselves part of what that feeling had been. an almost constant cycle of employment disputes.
You could be forgiven for assuming that the vast majority of college staff are lecturers, but in reality the split between teaching and non-teaching staff is almost 50-50 – and as anyone in education will (or at least anyone with any sense) will tell you, the support staff are absolutely essential to everything else that happens.
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Despite that, they are often undervalued – in terms of the work they do, and the rewards they should receive for doing it.
Talk to people who do these jobs – which range from classroom support to IT services to building management and much more – and you’ll hear complaints about low pay, poor career progression paths, increasing workloads, and cuts ongoing to the very services they provide.
One told me that staff morale was “at an all-time low”.
“I have never seen it so bad, with all the current issues together with the current mess in the salary agreement and being forgotten by the government. There is also a very nasty ‘us and them’ feeling between managers and staff which has been getting worse over the last few years.”
Mental health levels, they say, are poor and getting worse.
While disputes between lecturers and support staff have been fueled by similar catalysts over the years, there is one issue unique to the non-teaching side of the college’s workforce: a job evaluation program that was “meant to took six months and is now still. dragged on after six years.”
The result of all this is that there is currently a dispute between support staff and college employers. As lecturers, they have not received a pay rise to help them cope with the cost of living crisis. An offer has been submitted, and accepted by Unite and the GMB – but UNITY represents many more staff than those two unions and, so far, has refused to accept the agreement.
Janet Stewart, UNISON Scotland’s Lead Further Education Officer points out that the union represents more than 2500 support staff, and that the work they do disproportionately benefits the most vulnerable students:
“It is often the poorest, most disadvantaged students who benefit most from the work our members in further education do. They are less likely to have a computer so they need the support of the IT department and the library to help them. Single parents need guidance to help them organize childcare or finances to be able to study. Disadvantaged young people often need welfare support to keep their studies on track. And how does any course run without administrators to organize it?”
Yet, as well as the pay dispute, support staff are facing immediate job cuts across the sector.
“At Perth College we have just been told that 70 jobs – which includes 34 support staff – are about to go,” said Stewart. “It appears that this will include the closure – and consequent loss of staff – of the campus nursery which will undoubtedly cause real difficulty for students using that childcare facility. There is a threat of similar job cuts at Moray and Glasgow City colleges. Colleges say they need to close multi-million pound funding gaps.”
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UNISON members voted in favor of a strike at the end of 2023. There have been a few strike days so far, and the mandate for doing so runs until the end of May – but the hope was to strike a deal and avoid further disruption. Although negotiations are ongoing, and rumors of an impending deal have been quietly spreading, there seems to be a good chance of more strike action by members going forward:
“Further education is critical to fighting poverty, providing public services, and producing a skilled workforce,” Stewart said. “And he is seriously stressed. Industrial relations are bad, we are in the longest dispute since devolution and these essential services are simply disappearing and this Scottish government seems to be standing by and letting it happen.”
