‘Get active’ says new leader


Andrea Bradley, the recently elected leader of the EIS Scottish teaching union, has urged her members to “get active” in the union’s campaign for a 10% pay rise and build “a formidable display of our union strength”.


Bradley was elected as EIS general secretary at a specially convened Council meeting at the end of May and becomes the first woman to hold the position in the union’s 175-year history. She succeeds Larry Flanagan, who has been in the post for the past 10 years. 


Bradley has been an EIS activist for many years and an official since 2014, most recently as EIS assistant secretary (education and equality). 


The union currently faces what it calls a “derisory” 2% pay offer from Scottish local authorities and the Scottish Government and has not ruled out industrial action if it is not substantially improved. 


Bradley told the Daily Record: “We will ballot our members for industrial action should there not be a pay deal that takes into account the cost of living crisis.” 


Speaking at last month’s EIS AGM, she said: “It’s simply unacceptable that teachers and other public sector workers would be expected to bear the burden of yet another crisis that’s been created by the economic vandalism of the Tory government and a Cabinet of millionaires … utterly morally bankrupt and more intent on callous racketeering and profiteering than they are on caring about people and supporting recovery.”