Colleges fight to avert strike

Scotland's former centrally funded colleges are lobbying their staff in a bid to avert industrial action in the coming term.

Academic staff unions at the 13 institutions, which include Glasgow Caledonian, Napier, Paisley and the Robert Gordon universities, are balloting on strike action and industrial action short of strikes, after rejecting a pay offer of 2.5 per cent contingent on changes in conditions of service.

Brian Fraser, industrial relations adviser to the Conference of Centrally Funded Colleges, and senior assistant principal at Glasgow Caledonian University, has written to staff to elaborate on the management offer which he says may have been "misinterpreted".

The management wants to cut the 61-day holiday entitlement by five days, and get greater flexibility in the working week, but Dr Fraser said there was no intention to increase the working week. A longstanding commitment to move towards parity with the older universities, had resulted in virtually identical salary scales, but this was not the case for conditions of service.

Management were constantly reminded that the increasing burden on staff meant they could not take their full holiday entitlement, said Dr Fraser, and the "modest" adjustment of five days would still leave staff "with significantly more generous leave entitlement than the older universities while having reached parity and more on pay".

But Marion Healy, the Educational Institute of Scotland's officer for further and higher education, said the EIS University Lecturers' Association policy was not to tie changes in conditions of service to salary.

Eric Smith, general secretary of the Scottish Further and Higher Education Association, said the 2.5 per cent pay offer was being linked to a 2.5 per cent increase in the working year and was therefore not a pay rise. Both unions are urging their members to vote for industrial action.