The last ambulance strike in Scotland came way back in the dying days of Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government.
It was part of a dispute which ran from September 7, 1989, to February 23, 1990, between the ambulance workers and the UK Government over pay.
An offer of 7.5 per cent was rejected by the five ambulance workers’ unions, who demanded a 25.8 per cent rise to bring their wages more in line with those in the fire service.
Union action started with an overtime ban but escalated to a full refusal of crews to attend non-emergency calls in some areas – including Glasgow – in November and December 1989.
That forced the government to call in the Army, volunteer ambulances and the police to mitigate the effects of the strike. A pay deal of 16.9 per cent was eventually handed over.
Thatcher herself didn’t last long as PM, ending her time at No10 in November 1990 after a rebellion among Tory MPs over the disastrous Poll Tax.
Prior to the dispute in 1989, the last time Army ambulances were used was during the wave of public service pay strikes in 1978-79.
The Winter of Discontent was the period between November 1978 and February 1979 characterised by widespread strikes by private, and later public, sector trade unions demanding pay rises greater than the limits prime minister James Callaghan and his Labour Party government had been imposing, against TUC opposition, to control inflation.
Some of these industrial disputes caused great public inconvenience – exacerbated by the coldest winter in 16 years, in which severe storms isolated many remote areas of the country.
Back then inflation was 8.3 per cent – well below the current UK rate. But similar anger at below-inflation pay rises was the main driver of industrial unrest.
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