Education Correspondent

TEACHERS' union representatives and their local authority employers

are deadlocked over new pay scales and conditions for the 1990s after

the rapid breakdown of talks yesterday.

The teachers' unions unanimously rejected the local authorities'

proposals and asked for their withdrawal. ''They are effectively dead,''

the general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland, Mr Jim

Martin, said.

But the leader of the employers' side, Councillor Elizabeth Maginnis,

said: ''We are not going to withdraw the proposals. They represent the

best way forward for meeting the challenges of the nineties.''

They were presented to the sub-committee of the Scottish Joint

Negotiating Committee which has the task of producing salary scales and

conditions of service which will retain teachers in the profession,

encourage graduates to become teachers, address workload, and meet the

changing needs of education and the way it is run.

The management wants to replace national negotiation with local

flexibility in salary structures and working conditions. It seeks to

give authorities discretion over salary scales for senior staff and put

decision-making powers into their, and heads', hands.

The teachers' unions have also rejected the proposal to introduce an

all-inclusive 35-hour week, with heads having discretion over time not

spent in contact with classes.

They accuse management of seeking to lay down rules about how teachers

spend their working week in an unrealistic way that will do nothing to

improve morale.

The EIS, the main teachers' union, yesterday presented management with

the results of a survey of its members' views of the proposals. Mr

Martin said it represented about 75% of EIS teachers and showed they

also rejected the plans.

He said: ''We told management we believed that workload would be a

priority for the Government and we would pursue it with the

Government.''

The Scottish Education Minister, Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, has

begun an unofficial review of teacher workload and Mr Martin said he

would receive detailed evidence from the EIS this month.

The EIS leader said the teachers' side believed there was a problem

with workload which needed to be addressed while the employers believed

there was a problem of managing the workforce which needed to be

addressed.

Councillor Maginnis said: ''There must be very real concern about the

lack of alternative proposals from the teachers' side and about our

proposals not being taken seriously.

''I am very clear that the way forward is not for plant bargaining but

that we must have a national framework for negotiation that can deliver

changes in conditions and appropriate salary structures.

''We have reached deadlock. Unless the teachers are seriously saying

they want to negotiate with the Minister, and I do not think they are,

at some point they will have to come back and discuss the issues on the

table.''

She said management had agreed to establish a working party to examine

bureaucracy in the classroom to try to reduce the paperwork for teachers

in recording results.

At present teachers' salaries and conditions are negotiated annually

in the SJNC.

' We are not going to withdraw the proposals '

Elizabeth Maginnis

' They are effectively dead '

Jim Martin