An EIS emergency motion at the STUC annual meeting in Dundee highlighted the ongoing dispute over health and safety risks in the Welding and Fabrication Department at City of Glasgow College (CoGC). Welding lecturers at the college are currently undertaking strike action over this issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Commenting, EIS General Secretary Andrea Bradley said, \u201cIn bringing this emergency motion to Congress, the EIS seeks to shine a light on the unacceptable and intransigent behaviour of the management of City of Glasgow College on this matter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Rather than taking the legitimate health and safety concerns of welding lecturers on board, and seeking to address those concerns, college management have instead adopted a belligerent attitude which has only served to inflame the situation. It is simply unacceptable for a major publicly-funded employer to act in this way and to treat valuable employees with such apparent disdain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is simply unacceptable for a major publicly-funded employer to act in this way and to treat valuable employees with such apparent disdain.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Ms Bradley continued, \u201cOur members in the Welding and Fabrication Department are undertaking hazardous activities, and being exposed to levels of risk unacceptable to our members, in the course of their daily working lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “This includes being exposed to known carcinogens without high quality safety equipment and without adequate risk assessments having been completed. Apprentices in welding classes are coming into the college with good safety equipment provided by their employers, but are being taught by lecturers who have not been provided with that same standard of safety equipment by the college. This really is quite an incredible, and wholly unacceptable, situation for our members.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ms Bradley added, \u201cThe entire trade union movement in Scotland is joining with the EIS, through the STUC, to call on the Scottish Government to intervene to ensure that the Principal and management of City of Glasgow College work with us to reach a resolution in this dispute. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “Our members are on strike not to seek a pay rise nor to protect terms and conditions, but to ensure protection for their health and wellbeing. No-one should ever be placed in a situation where their health is put at undue risk through work, and welding lecturers at City of Glasgow College should be no exception to this essential principle. The message from the STUC is that City of Glasgow College must act urgently to end this dispute and to ensure a safe working environment for all staff, as well as students, undertaking welding within the college.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Congress stands in solidarity with EIS-FELA members in the City of Glasgow College (CoGC) Welding and Fabrication Department who are carrying out strike action to ensure safe workspaces for them and their students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Congress notes with significant concern that, despite the efforts of the local EIS-FELA City of Glasgow College Branch to resolve the formal health and safety dispute, the college management continues to refuse to ensure that all lecturing staff in welding workshops are supplied with Respiratory Protective Equipment (RPE) as protection against harmful airborne carcinogens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The City of Glasgow College is a public sector body. It is publicly funded and ultimately accountable to Ministers and the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Government requires public sector bodies to adopt fair work practices and value workers\u2019 \u2018voice\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Congress expresses its concern that public sector workers must take strike action to get improvements in order to be safe at work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Congress recognises that there is a history of poor industrial relations at City of Glasgow College and evidence of an ingrained management culture that seems hostile to the local EIS-FELA branch and seeks to undermine its voice on behalf of workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Congress calls on the Scottish Government to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n An EIS emergency motion at the STUC annual meeting in Dundee highlighted the ongoing dispute over health and safety risks in the Welding and Fabrication Department at City of Glasgow College (CoGC). Welding lecturers at the college are currently undertaking strike action over this issue. Commenting, EIS General Secretary Andrea Bradley said, \u201cIn bringing this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2663,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mainfeatures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/may2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/may2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/may2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/may2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/may2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2628"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/may2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2759,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/may2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2628\/revisions\/2759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/may2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/may2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/may2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/may2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}STUC Emergency Motion on City of Glasgow College \u2013 Submitted by the EIS<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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