The Scotsman Bulletin Tuesday September 26 2023 #SchoolStrikes
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00:00 [MUSIC]
00:08 Hello and welcome to the Scotsman Daily Built In for Tuesday.
00:11 I'm Alan Young, I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman,
00:13 joined today by our political correspondent Rachel Emery
00:16 to take a look at some of the main headlines.
00:18 Hi Rachel.
00:19 Morning.
00:19 Let's have a look at the front page first.
00:23 And we lead today on the net zero latest,
00:28 Hansa Yousaf yesterday refusing to back down on the Scottish targets
00:34 for things like the replacement of gas boilers.
00:38 And this is despite Richard Sunak, as we know,
00:42 last week, washing down the UK's key pledges.
00:45 Much more on that.
00:47 It's going to be a key election issue.
00:49 You feel in the wing there, as many parents will know already today,
00:57 schools closing across Scotland as the strike by support staff begins.
01:02 And that is what I want to speak to Rachel about.
01:06 So Rachel, lots of children learning from home today.
01:10 I have to apologise if my internet goes down
01:13 because there's extra strain being put on the Wi-Fi in my house.
01:17 Bring us up to date with how we got here.
01:20 Yes, it's going to be three days of strikes for non-teaching staff in schools.
01:24 So your janitors, your admin staff, those who work in canteens, that sort of thing.
01:29 Now, this is going to be over three days.
01:30 If you remember last week, there was a bit of confusion as to what was going on,
01:33 because there was initially three unions involved in this.
01:36 So Unite, Unison and the GMB.
01:38 And talks at the 11th hour last week.
01:41 And at the end, Unite and the GMB union both agreed to drop the industrial action.
01:46 They said that while it wasn't perfect, it was still good enough.
01:49 And so they called off the strikes.
01:52 However, Unison have not done that.
01:53 And therefore, they are still striking today.
01:55 So schools up and down the country will still be closed for three days as of today.
01:59 And this new offer that came from COSLA last week, as you said,
02:04 we had Hamza Yousaf speaking yesterday saying that, in his view,
02:10 Unison should be putting it to their, at least putting it to their members
02:13 and suspending strike action in the meantime, as the other unions are.
02:17 Yes, so COSLA says that they've managed to find this money
02:20 from things like reprioritising their budget.
02:23 Finding underspend, which is quite a sort of technical council speak there.
02:27 And they say they have found this money and it won't be from cutting services.
02:31 However, Unison say that they are not convinced by that.
02:33 They still think that there may be cuts to services that they're offering,
02:37 which is what they don't want to see happening.
02:39 So that's why they are still going ahead with the strike and the other two unions are not.
02:43 But it's actually said, Hamza Yousaf has said that Unison should
02:46 to try and call off the strikes and come back to the drawing board there.
02:50 Unison have responded to that saying that, yes, they are open, their doors are open
02:54 and the only way to avoid the strike action is to get back around the table
02:57 with a better pay offer.
02:58 So it is three days. It is possible.
03:01 It could be resolved within the next couple of days.
03:04 We might not see the full three days, but at the moment we just don't know.
03:06 And we've got any idea, I mean, it's early yet,
03:10 but of the impact, different council areas are being affected in different ways.
03:16 I know, for instance, here in Edinburgh, every school is closed,
03:19 but that's not the case across the country.
03:21 No, so it's actually 24 local authority areas that are taking part in the strike.
03:27 And each local authority, some schools are closed, some schools are not closed.
03:30 Some schools are doing home learning, for example.
03:33 Some secondary schools are only open to senior pupils.
03:35 It really does depend on each local authority area.
03:38 Most of them have put out what they are doing on their own social media channels.
03:42 Each person can check their own local authority area there.
03:45 Yes, it is kind of different across the whole of the country.
03:48 And that has led to a lot of people saying there's a postcode lottery now
03:51 when it comes to education this week,
03:53 because as we said, some schools are open, some schools are not.
03:56 And any indication at this stage how hopeful the union or the Scottish Government or COSLA
04:06 may be that this is going to be resolved quickly,
04:09 or could we be looking at more strikes after this three days of action?
04:14 It's really difficult to say at this point,
04:16 but Unison were certainly on the radio this morning
04:18 saying we're sticking strong here.
04:20 We are still not convinced this is a good enough offer for our members.
04:23 So they are very much sticking strong to that
04:26 and are sort of putting the ball back into the government's court here.
04:28 So it'll really just have to see what negotiations happen over the next few days.
04:32 Indeed. We'll be following it very closely throughout the day.
04:38 And we'll have all the very latest at scotsman.com as ever.
04:42 Please do subscribe if you can, and then you will not miss a thing.
04:47 And if you're out and about today, please do pick up a copy of the paper
04:51 from me and from Rachel.
04:53 It's bye for now.
04:54 Bye.