Teachers plotting first walkout in 40 years

SCHOOLS face turmoil as teachers look certain to strike for the first time in nearly four decades.

Union chiefs announced their intention to go ahead with a ballot on industrial action as a row over pay escalated yesterday. They are plotting one-day walkouts next month after rejecting the latest wages offer.

The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) will convene a meeting today to cement plans for the ballot. If a stoppage goes ahead it will be the first national strike over pay since the 1980s.

Education Secretary John Swinney has said an updated offer from the Scottish Government and council umbrella body Cosla is ‘a better deal than for any group of public sector workers in the UK’, but it was rejected by the teachers’ side of the negotiations this week. Unions claim teachers’ pay has fallen by 20 per cent in real terms in the past decade and teachers have been calling for an immediate 10 per cent rise.

But the present offer involves a three-year deal which might see a 3 per cent rise in 2018-19 for those earning up to £80,000.

EIS general secretary Larry Flanagan said: ‘Our members have shown a great deal of patience but this is now exhausted.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Industrial action is in no one’s interests.’