Staff spoke of a two tier Sixth form system at a strike at English Bridge Shrewsbury College Campus. Sixth form colleges were told they were getting 5.5% pay rise but it seems only the Academy sixth forms have been given that, and they say there doing the same job and thats not fair.
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00:00So we're here we're here at Shrewsbury College English Bridge campus very cold
00:05morning morning folks I'm sure you're not here just because you love standing
00:10out in the cold so you all you're all staff here so staff are striking today
00:16yeah so just fill us in on what's happening guys
00:22today because our pay body have not given us a fair pay settlement this year
00:28the academized six forms have been offered a 5.5% pay increase along with
00:33the teachers and schools however about 40 of the six form colleges have been
00:38excluded from that offer yeah so we've been offered well we started with a 2%
00:43offer that's been increased to 3.5 now but we've been told we can't have a full
00:475.5 like the rest of our colleagues until April so basically we're creating
00:52a two-tier pay system within six form colleges so you're doing the same job as
00:57these Academy six form same courses same qualifications same age of students
01:04but we're not being given pay parity it's really unfair so what what's the
01:08thinking as to why academies are getting it are you feeling it's just a way of
01:12them basically saving money you know it's not like they're doing anything
01:15special no the kind of the general opinion is that the government had
01:18actually made a mistake in how they kind of classified six form colleges yeah so
01:24they've lumped the academies in with the schools and decided that the rest of
01:28us six for colleges the same as FE which their pay is negotiated through the
01:32employers as opposed to through a national pay body yeah yeah anybody else
01:37want to add anything yeah it seems it's quite interesting isn't it a six form
01:40college is not just a six form college it would say now there's different
01:45categories when it comes to handing out the salaries I think basically the
01:49government have made a silly mistake they haven't thought through the
01:52situation they haven't thought through what how the education system works for
01:57six form colleges and I've made a very silly error and because they want to
02:02save some embarrassments they're not gonna change on their decision and just
02:08very slowly bit by bit negotiating with us over a period of time and it's
02:13incredibly silly because at the end of the day all they have to do is make a
02:18very quick decision say yeah all right we'll give you 5.5% and everyone goes
02:22back to the classroom back to teaching the students where they want to be
02:27I think the worst thing as a result of this is it's going to drive teachers within the six form sector away from this sector so it's going to have long-term
02:39consequences for students we don't want to affect the educational lives of our
02:47students a lot of us put in extra work for our students which is unpaid
02:54but this is clearly the last straw
02:59it's another example of driving down pay within the public sector
03:05in general this so you know we we've got to make a stance
03:13the money's there we're a very rich country and the government have got an
03:20option you know and that options not to make cuts within the public sector and
03:24that option is to tax those who can carry the burden those who are the
03:33wealthy within society and corporation tax we've got away with it for the last
03:3840 years because of this neo-liberal economic approach I guess it must I
03:44mean we were always even about the general kind of teaching it's a lot of
03:48people get into it and it can be so stressful you know it's hard to kind of
03:51maintain retain staff so I guess this sort of stuff doesn't happen does it
03:57really I guess it just makes you feel like you're not being you're not being
04:00seen as worthy you know sort of thing
04:05every other teacher in the country is getting 5.5% from September
04:09we should get the same, we should all get our 5.5% increase at the same time
04:18well thank you for speaking to the Shropshire Star today guys and try and
04:22keep yourselves warm and all the best