Teachers in Glasgow have voted heavily in favour of strike action over education cuts in the city.
A statutory industrial action ballot in Scotland’s biggest local authority, organised by the EIS teaching union, closed today, with 95 per cent of those voting - on a 57 per cent turnout - backing strike action, with 5 per cent opposing it.
After the news was made public shortly before 5pm today, Andrea Bradley, general secretary of the EIS, said it was an “outstanding ballot result” that sent “a very clear message to Glasgow City Council that they must stop, and reverse, their programme of damaging education cuts”.
After the result was announced, a Glasgow City Council spokesperson said: “The EIS has notified us of the outcome of their statutory ballot and their mandate for potential strike action.”
Tes Scotland revealed in February 2024 that the council planned to cut 450 teaching posts over three years.
Teachers support strike over job cuts
Ms Bradley said today that the impact was “already being felt in schools across Glasgow, with in the region of 300 teaching posts having been removed”.
She highlighted the “detrimental impact on the educational experiences of pupils across the city, some of whom are the most socioeconomically deprived in Scotland”, with the Glasgow cuts also “compounding what can only be described as crisis levels of teacher workload”.
Jane Gow, the EIS’ local association secretary for Glasgow, said: “The teachers in our schools know very well the impact that these cuts are having on learning and teaching, and they have shown that they are willing to take strike action to force the council into a reversal.”
She said that a 10 per cent cut to Glasgow teaching staff proposed by the council would be “hugely damaging to young people’s education” and “pile even more workload on to already overburdened school staff”.
Ms Gow added: “With a 5.5 per cent increase in the Glasgow Council budget this year, and with the cap on council tax increases lifted, the council now has the financial wherewithal to stop the cuts and to instead invest in the education of our young people.”
‘Challenging’ financial situation
Last week an warned that Scotland’s councils face a “challenging” future and severe financial pressures in the short term.
In December education secretary Jenny Gilruth said that councils would get an extra £69 million in 2025-26 to restore teacher numbers to 2023 levels and employ more specialist additional support needs staff. Councils had also agreed to freeze learning hours and make progress in reducing class-contact time.
Concerns have been raised, however, about the “exceptional circumstances” that the government has said it will be prepared to consider if councils fail to hit their teacher number targets.
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