Tag Archives: strike action

SNP must repair relations with councils and unions as more than 210,000 days lost

By Mark Valladares | Sat 13th July 2024 - 11:45 pm

Scottish Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Willie Rennie has today said that the Education Secretary must rebuild relations with trade unions and local authorities as he revealed that more than 210,000 staff days were lost to strikes in just 18 months.

Freedom of information requests submitted by Scottish Liberal Democrats have revealed:

In 2022/23, at least 170,049 school and council staff days were lost due to strikes, while a further 46,197 were lost between April and October 2023;

Children missing out on up to a dozen days of education;

Among the local authorities which responded, Glasgow lost the most days of staff time with 29,295

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An idea to put a stop to those public sector strikes

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 10th July 2014 - 8:44 pm

Schools, libraries, the Welsh Assembly and other government offices were shut or operating a reduced service day because of a strike by several public sector unions in protest at their falling wages, increasing pensions contributions and longer working lives.

David Cameron has a totally wizard wheeze to stop all this from happening. He wants to shift the goalposts so that a certain threshold have to turn out to vote in favour of strike action. Oh, Dave, really. If you start questioning the legitimacy of elections with low turnout, …

Posted in News | Also tagged public sector and unions | 15 Comments

Opinion: Support teachers’ right to strike, but not the NUT strikes in June

By Patrick McAuley | Fri 25th April 2014 - 10:46 am

It’s no secret to readers of Liberal Democrat Voice that when I write an article, education professionals tend to get it in the neck. At least I’m consistent.

So why should the June strike bother me? Jerry Glazier highlights the issue of teachers’ workload that it is now up to 55 to 60 hours a week on average. This angered me because while youth unemployment stands at just under 1 million a qualified teacher in primary or secondary will start on £21,000 and on average …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged education, nut and teachers | 114 Comments