Teachers in strike ballot over lack of action to reduce ‘crippling’ workload

Teachers are to be balloted for strike action over their “crippling” workload, with union leaders insisting the Scottish Government and councils have “dithered” and “delayed” over plans to cut the time spent in classrooms.

The EIS said it had been “years” since the SNP made a manifesto pledge to reduce classroom time for teachers to a maximum of 21 hours a week.

The union’s general secretary, Andrea Bradley, complained that “unfair, unhealthy and unsustainable levels of teacher workload” have been “plaguing teachers’ professional and personal lives for years”.

She added that while staff have “shown divine patience”, they are “continuing to toil under excessive workload burdens”.

The move to a statutory industrial action ballot was agreed unanimously at a special meeting of the EIS executive committee on Tuesday.

It marks an escalation of the dispute between the trade union, the Scottish Government and local government body Cosla over the failure to deliver a commitment made in the 2021 SNP manifesto to cut teachers’ classroom time.

The EIS went into formal dispute over the issue in February after a deadline for a “tangible plan” for delivering the change passed without being met.

Ms Bradley said: “We are now in the fifth year since the current Scottish Government administration made a manifesto promise to address crippling teacher workload, after years of knowing about and acknowledging the seriousness of it, by reducing teachers’ maximum class contact time to 21 hours per week.

“During this time, teachers have shown divine patience, while continuing to toil under excessive workload burdens, and thousands more teachers are without permanent contracts and out of work or underemployed as the Scottish Government and Cosla have continually dithered, delayed and disagreed with one another over delivery of this essential commitment.

“The unanimous agreement by the EIS executive committee confirms that teachers’ patience on this matter is now more than spent and we will now move ahead with a statutory ballot for industrial action.”

Ms Bradley said the EIS had warned councils and ministers “they must keep their promise to move ahead, at pace, on a concrete programme of delivery for this commitment”.

She added: “It is simply unacceptable that the Scottish Government has failed to deliver.

“The repeated obfuscation from Cosla, representing teachers’ employers, has only made the situation worse.

“Meanwhile, teachers in Scotland continue to work the equivalent of a day-and-a-half extra each week, unpaid, as they try to get everything done that needs to be done.

“It is these joint failings on the part of both the Scottish Government and Cosla that have led to this decision.”

She insisted the ballot could be avoided by the Government and councils “keeping their commitments to reduce teachers’ workload by reducing class contact time”.

Ms Bradley urged them to “at long last agree a way forward in the delivery of the promises made on workload reduction”.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Ministers have been clear that reducing class contact will help support the time and space necessary for teachers, to allow them to drive improvement and reform in our schools and improve outcomes for their pupils.

“We are committed to working with teaching unions and Cosla to agree our approach to delivering a reduction in class contact time at pace.

“Ministers respect union members’ right to withdraw their labour, but are disappointed that the EIS has taken this action while these constructive discussions are ongoing.”