Scotsman Daily Bulletin, July 12

The Scotsman

Deputy Editor Alan Young is joined by Education Correspondent Calum Ross

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Bulletin for Friday. I'm Alan Young, I am

00:08Deputy Editor of the Scotsman. I'm joined today by our Education Correspondent Callum

00:13Ross to take a look at the main headline. Hi Callum.

00:17Hi Alan.

00:18Let's have a look at the front page first. And you can see we lead today on Callum's

00:25story and that is around the prospect of school strikes. Remember them, they are back for

00:322024. Unison, the union, are a balloting school staff which could potentially see a raft of

00:43walkouts in September, just a few weeks after the kids return. Unison, obviously, their

00:49members are the janitors and support staff who look after the schools, so taking them

00:55out really leaves schools with no other option but to close. So Callum, just bring us up

01:05to date with where we are. This is the latest in a series of different disputes.

01:12That's right, Alan. I think pretty much all council workers, non-teaching council workers

01:18are involved in this dispute and there's various phases. We've already heard about

01:25bin collectors potentially going on strike. I think that's GMB and Unite members at the

01:31moment with Unison balloting as well. And yesterday, Unison, which is the biggest public

01:37sector union, said that it was sending strike ballots to 38,000 workers in Scottish schools

01:46and nurseries and family centres. Like you say, these are non-teaching staff like janitors,

01:52cleaners, catering staff, etc. And this could lead to walkouts in early September, like you

02:00say, just a few weeks into the start of the new term. So a big major disruption for pupils,

02:08potentially a big headache for parents too, and also for councils and the government who

02:15are going to have to try and resolve this without much money. This will all probably

02:19sound quite familiar to people because it did happen last year. There was industrial action,

02:25there were walkout school closures between September until it was sort of resolved and

02:32the pay deal was accepted in November. So yeah, it's a bit of a summer of discontent.

02:43And so the dispute, I guess it's important to point out, is with COSLA,

02:49which is the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. Ultimately, the Scottish Government,

02:54although the Scottish Government will say this is up to COSLA to sort out.

02:59Yeah, that is what they've said and that is normally what they say at the start. But then

03:06at some point, you know, the political pressure gets to a point where the Scottish Government

03:12has to decide whether to kind of step in and find some money down the back of a sofa to

03:17try and resolve it. Obviously, school closures are, you know, it's a huge issue. It affects,

03:24you know, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people across Scotland. So you'd imagine the

03:30government would come under a bit of a pressure. But I mean, there's bigger issues ahead as well.

03:36Scottish teachers are involved in negotiations over a new pay deal and that's not going well.

03:44I mean, I wouldn't be hugely surprised if we started to hear about moves towards industrial

03:49action on teachers too. So this is becoming a bit of a feature of, you know, Scottish politics

03:56every year and everyone's lives, you know, this annual kind of cycle of industrial action.

04:02And have we heard anything at all from COSLA?

04:07No, not yet. I did get in touch with them yesterday. I've not heard back. I don't know if

04:12there are maybe some of their people are on holiday. It's the middle of July, but it'll be

04:18interesting to see what they've got to say. Indeed, and for a nasty shock when they come

04:22back from holiday. Okay, so thanks very much for that. Calum, you can read the full story

04:28at moments.scotsman.com or in today's paper. If you are on the website, please do subscribe if

04:35you can, then you'll be able to read and watch absolutely everything we do. And if you're out

04:39and about today, as ever, please do pick up a copy of the paper. But for me and for Calum, it's bye

04:46for now.

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