Pat Rowland

Jim Snell

Congress condemned the planned cuts in Further Education funding and college mergers when unemployment levels amongst young people are spiralling and when the need for skills development could not be greater. The STUC will co-ordinate a campaign to oppose these cuts and for the introduction of national bargaining into further education.

Pat Rowland of UNISON told Congress that UNISON members in Further Education have always been part of education teams, working in areas such as registration, welfare administration, technical support and libraries. “These members face different challenges from their academic colleagues and should have their own directly elected representative on regional governance structures,” said Pat.

She supported a return to national bargaining to stop the postcode lottery which has eroded pay and conditions.

“It is imperative that both academics and non academics have a place at the table,” said Pat, calling for more to be done to ensure that bodies who receive public money are much more accountable to the communities they serve.

UNISON’s Jim Snell, speaking for Glasgow TUC echoed Pat’s calls. He told Congress that Freedom of Information Requests have shown that colleges in Glasgow have been spending tens of thousands of pounds on consultants’ fees on which colleges to merge. “We think this is profligate in the extreme,” slammed Jim.

He welcomed the recognition that education is delivered by a team but criticised the recommendation of the Griggs report that trade unions only get one place on the new governance structures. He called for recognition for all workers in the FE sector.

Jim also welcomed the Griggs Report’s recommendation that there should be national bargaining. “However, this should not be a race to the bottom,” he warned.