Strikes in 24 of Scotland’s local authorities are set to go ahead this week after councils and a trade union failed to reach an agreement over the weekend.
Unison was the only major union not to suspend three days of action among its non-teaching school staff planned to begin on Tuesday after a new deal was put on the table.
Unite and the GMB union both cancelled strikes to put the offer from local authority body Cosla to members, while Unison opted to ballot staff while continuing action.
It is understood there was correspondence between the two parties over the weekend, but no new offer was made.
Mark Ferguson, the chair of Unison Scotland’s local government committee said: “Unison is continuing with schools strikes unless something significant comes from Cosla in the next hours.
READ MORE: School strikes Scotland - Why are staff walking out?
“We have tried to talk to Cosla over the weekend, but problems still remain – Unison’s commitment to winning a £15 per hour minimum rate for all local government roles has still not been satisfactorily addressed.
“And the failure to provide any new money to back this offer means further cuts to jobs and services. Unison will not accept a position where the union is asked to trade pay for jobs and services.
“No one takes the decision to strike lightly.
“But Unison believes that council workers in Scotland deserve far better this.
“I know the inconvenience these strikes will cause. I am a parent myself. But if we don’t take a stand then the longer-term impact on our children and communities is going to get far worse.”
The new offer represents a minimum wage increase of £2,006 for those on the Scottish Government’s living wage and a minimum increase of £1,929 for workers who are earning above the living wage.
The living wage of £10.85 will rise to £11.89 under the new offer, equivalent to a 9.6% increase.
The pay offer is estimated to cost roughly £580 million.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here