Council bosses are set to meet union representatives in a last minute bid to stop strikes that could leave rubbish piling up around West Lothian.
Waste workers walked out on Thursday in Edinburgh in protest at a 3.5 per cent pay rise offer unions blasted as “derisory” and “pathetic”, with the strike scheduled to last until August 30.
A meeting is being held today (Tuesday) with Cosla and Unite and the GMB to stop the spread of the industrial action to other local authorities, including West Lothian.
In the capital rubbish is piling up, with city centre streets covered in litter, bins overflowing in tourist hotspots and black bags rapidly piling up outside people’s homes.
Last week council umbrella body Cosla offered a 5 per cent pay deal to workers, a move First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said on Monday she hoped would resolve the dispute.
“Nobody wants to see the kind of disruption and impact of strikes that many people are witnessing in Edinburgh right now,” she said.
Cosla is set to meet the unions on Tuesday, but the unions have warned there was “insignificant detail” in the proposals so far and said the strikes would continue as planned.
Alison Maclean, industrial officer at Unite, said: “Our members have taken the brave stance of taking strike action to get the pay rise they deserve and we are determined to ensure that this happens.”
If the dispute is not solved, the scenes which have met festival-goers in the capital could be replicated across Scotland, with Edinburgh scheduled as the first in a series of strikes north of the border.
Ms Maclean said the walk-outs would “continue as planned”, and added: “There remains insignificant detail on the 5% pay offer, and what this in reality means for the lowest paid workers.
“At this moment the offer from Cosla remains a vague aspirational pledge but Unite can’t take anything to our wider membership unless we have specifics and guarantees.”
And Kier Greenaway, GMB Scotland’s senior organiser, said union members wanted “clarity from Cosla about whether this proposal comes with the assurance of a flat rate award, a key demand of the union pay claim”.
“The prospect of the highest paid getting the biggest cash increases in any offer would be unacceptable, let alone one that is still well below inflation,” he said.
Last month the Consumer Price Index inflation reached a new 40-year high of 10.1 per cent, with some analysts having predicted the UK is on course to breach 18% at the start of 2023 due to skyrocketing energy bills.
The strikes are expected to hit 14 local authorities across Scotland, with workers set to walk out in areas including Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, East Renfrewshire and West Lothian.
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “We urge local authority and union representatives to come to an agreement to resolve the dispute as soon as possible.
“The Scottish Government is treating councils fairly and providing a real terms increase of 6.3% to local authority budgets this year, as well as providing an extra £140 million of funding on a recurring basis to support a higher pay award for council staff.
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