HUNDREDS of workers rallied alongside striking college lecturers today as they vowed to escalate their long-running dispute until victory is achieved.

Gatheried at Glasgow’s Buchanan Street steps, members of the Unison, RMT, CWU and UCU unions stood alongside their comrades in EIS-FELA, who have not had a pay rise since 2022.

They now face hard-line college principals’ deducting 100 per cent of pay for action short of a strike, a process known as “deeming.”

Addressing the rally, Unison’s Brian Smith and RMT Scottish organiser Gordon Martin offered their unions’ solidarity, while Glasgow Kelvin College student Brian Donachie told the lecturers: “We will always support you and we will always stand in solidarity with every single one of you.”

City of Glasgow College lecturer Frances Curran added: “We’re still here because of actions of union-busting principals causing chaos in our sector in the last two years.

“They are attempting to break our union — this is not just about a pay dispute.

“They want to break the union so that they can introduce privatisation and dismantle popular education as we know it.”

Taking aim at the SNP Scottish government, STUC general secretary Roz Foyer said: “Why are you sending first minister after first minister to STUC Congresses to tell us you are a friend of the unions, that you will not stand for union-busting and anti-strike legislation from south of the border if you are going to allow further education colleges up and down this country to attack our workers with deeming, with cutting their pay?

“That is union-busting! That has absolutely zero to do with fair work and the Scottish government has the power in their hands to put a stop to it.”