Further Education

Issues in further and adult education

College strike against cuts

After a pause for a re-ballot of the membership, the EIS-FELA strike at the City of Glasgow College recommenced on 14 Nov. EIS-FELA is the Further Education section of the Scottish teachers union, the EIS. The disputes date back to October 2022, when management issued a briefing claiming that the college faced financial difficulties and that “cost-cutting measures” would be needed. Without consultation with EIS-FELA, despite it being the recognised union for teaching staff, cuts to courses were imposed. In February of this year staff who had opted for voluntary redundancy were given notice of...

Lecturers fight job cuts

By Dale Street Lecturers at the City of Glasgow College, members of the EIS-FELA trade union, are striking against plans to axe around a hundred jobs in the college by the beginning of July. Following a period of action short of a strike, lecturers have been on strike since 30 May for four days each week. The cuts to jobs come on top of cuts in the contact time lecturers have with students. This has resulted in lecturers being given more classes to teach, and a consequent increase in workloads. The college has been picketed each day of the strike, with visits by delegations from other trade...

Student conference on cost-of-living crisis

Activists in Sheffield Solidarity Group organised a conference on 22 October where students from around the country gathered in Sheffield to discuss our response to the Cost of Living crisis, building on the rent strikes and fee strikes of 2020-21. It was open, democratic and allowed all viewpoints to be discussed. There have been pockets of strong organisation, particularly in Sheffield, Nottingham, Manchester, and more recently in London with London Solidarity Group. The hardship faced by students now requires us to put forward demands as students, for students. Agreed demands included...

Battling a 2.5% pay offer in FE

Workers from Lewisham College joined the University and College Union (UCU) strike of 23 Further Education (FE) colleges on 6 and 7 October. Two further days next week and three the following week. Six other colleges are striking on other dates. The picket was lively, noisy and well supported by students and other supporters. The strikers rally heard speakers from Lewisham College, an RMT tube driver, UCU speakers from Lambeth College and Goldsmiths University and from UCU General Secretary, Jo Grady. Speakers pointed to the increased salaries of the college's principal and the leadership of...

Local deals and the UCU disputes

As the long-running University and College Union (UCU) disputes in Higher Education (HE) continue, further local settlements have been offered to branches to withdraw disruptive marking and assessment boycotts. The local offers provide cash for staff in certain campuses, but the national picture of the strike is being eroded. On the one hand, branches winning settlements are ensuring higher pay for campus staff in the near-term, highly important in the context of an escalating cost-of-living crisis. On the other, the likelihood that our union will win our national disputes reduces in the short...

Scottish FE teachers push on pay

After no progress in pay talks with Scottish Further Education (FE) employers on 13 May, the campaign by members of the EIS-FELA trade union to win their pay demand for 2021-22 continues, with further strikes in the coming weeks. The pay claim by EIS-FELA – unlike in England, FE in Scotland is not covered by the UCU but by the FE section of the Scottish teachers union, the EIS – was lodged in June of 2021, with the aim of the increase being implemented in September. The claim was for a flat-rate pay rise of £2,000 across all salary points. But “over the course of negotiations, acting in good...

Close votes at NEU conference

The National Education Union (NEU) met online from 7 to 9 April for an annual conference of reduced length due to the exigencies of having to meet online.

Sixth form colleges strike

We’ll be striking in 25 colleges on 17 October, and then again on 5 and 20 November. The feeling I pick up is that oversized classes, workload, management bullying, interpretation of directed time agreements are the big issues, exacerbated by issues of funding and pay. Sixth Form teachers’ pay has fallen behind school teachers’ pay. We probably need a 15% rise to get us back to the relative level of 2008. There’s been a general pay freeze, but that has been eased in schools and continued in the Sixth Form sector. The government is trumpeting the end of austerity, but the Sixth Form sector is...

How Labour should end austerity

Since 2010 austerity has ground down working-class living standards for the benefit of the ultra-rich. Life has been made meaner and more insecure. Boris Johnson now says he will end austerity. But that is all a matter of previously-budgeted money being “recycled” and called expansion, and random promises to try to win a general election after which he will be free to do his right-wing worst for five years. The NHS and social care have been squeezed so that waiting lists expand and A&E wait times explode. Hospitals routinely run at the upper limit of capacity, so that an epidemic, or an...

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