Glasgow’s cleansing workers could threaten to go on strike again this year as the city prepares to host the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships.
The city will welcome 'the world's biggest cycling event' over 11 days in August, and will be expecting thousands of spectators and competitors.
Hopes of showing Glasgow in its best light may be at risk however, over a dispute about pay and conditions for the city's cleansing staff.
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GMB Branch 40 convenor Chris Mitchell warned there could be strike action during the event unless the Scottish Government “bail out” the Scotland’s largest city and help them pay more to the low paid workers who “keep the city afloat”.
Earlier this year the GMB rejected a 5% pay offer from COSLA which they claim is a “step in the wrong direction and now a recent Audit Scotland report has said that “radical change” is needed to improve public services across all Scottish councils.
The Scottish Government has said that in 2023-24, Glasgow City Council will receive over £1.5 billion to fund local services, which equates to an extra £62.6m to support vital day to day services or an additional 4.2 per cent compared to 2022-23.
And Glasgow City Council says the pandemic significantly disrupted the delivery of services, adding that the impact of strike action in 2021 and 2022 "will have also negatively affected how people regard the effectiveness of our operations".
Chris Mitchell, cleansing convenor, said: “There is potentially going to be industrial action in a month because of the latest offer from COSLA. We are still in discussions with them over this 5% increase they offered us at the beginning of the year.
“The GMB right across Scotland and other trade unions knocked back that offer. We believe there is more money there and we should be offered something similar to last year’s pay rise which was a step in the right direction to take our workers out of poverty.
“This offer is a step in the wrong direction. The new First Minister says he wants to fix services and engage with workers because he knows how important public services are so why are we sitting in this position again?
“Particularly in Glasgow which is the biggest city with the biggest problems. Forty people [permanently recruited staff in the refuse collection team] are not going to clean the city - it is simply going to put a sticking plaster on it.
“We are in the position now to go to ballot again but what we have coming up here is the European Cycling Championships in August.
“Thousands of people are going to be cycling around the city. Enough is enough.”
The report issued by Audit Scotland also says councils must change how they operate if they are to improve and maintain services to their communities.
Statistics show that in Glasgow 64.4% of people are satisfied with local refuse collection compared to 75.3% in Scotland overall while only 49.8% of residents were satisfied with local street cleanliness compared to 60% in Scotland.
Mr Mitchell added: “We are calling on the Scottish Government to bail out Glasgow’s council services. That doesn’t just include cleansing, it includes care, social services, pest control and environmental health.
“It is the low paid workers that are keeping this city afloat. Services are in decline in Glasgow. The Scottish Government needs to recognise the issues for Scotland’s biggest city and give them a bail out.
“We are in a public health emergency and the council has been decimating services for the last two or three years.
“We really need more boots on the ground.”
The Scottish Government says it has increased the resources available to local government in 2023-24 by more than £793 million, a real terms increase of £376 million or 3%, compared to the 2022-23 budget figures.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Scottish Ministers recognise these are challenging times for local authorities with budgets across the public sector hit by high inflation.
“The recent report from the Accounts Commission confirms that local authority revenue funding has increased by 5.2% in real terms between 2020-21 and 2023-24.
“It is the responsibility of local authorities to manage their own budgets and allocate the total financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities.
“Local government pay negotiations are a matter for local authorities as employers and unions - the Scottish Government has no formal role.”
A Glasgow City Council spokesperson added: “As acknowledged by Audit Scotland, the pandemic significantly disrupted the delivery of services and the impact of strike action in 2021 and 2022 will have also negatively affected how people regard the effectiveness of our operations.
“Glasgow continues to spend more per household on refuse collection and street cleansing than almost all other local authorities and we are always aiming to ensure available resources are deployed as effectively as possible.
“Various initiatives are being undertaken to address environmental concerns across the city such as our deep clean teams, the week of action projects and City Makers alongside our regular street cleansing service.
“We have also recently recruited 40 new permanent staff in our refuse collection team and we are taking on new staff in street cleansing, which will assist greatly with the effectiveness of the service.
“A forthcoming pilot of on-street bin hubs in select areas will allow us to trial more frequent collections and expanded recycling options for flatted properties and we will be looking closely at whether this approach can be applied more widely across the city."
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