Glasgow school workers are set to go on strike next month in the latest dispute over pay.
UNISON and GMB confirmed they have sent notices to nine councils across Scotland - including Glasgow City Council, East Renfrewshire, North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire - that workers will go on strike after a lack of progress in talks with COSLA over council pay.
Staff members including teaching assistants, early years workers, catering staff, janitors and support staff are due to take part in the industrial action on September 6, 7 and 8.
READ MORE: Glasgow university workers vote to strike over 'national disgrace' pay row
Waste and recycling staff also have planned action from August 26 to 29 and September 7 to 10. UNISON have a mandate to call out 13,000 workers on strike. Staff will disrupt schools, early years centres, nurseries and waste and recycling centres across Scotland, in the largest strike among council workers since the Trade Union Act was introduced in 2016.
The councils notified are: Aberdeenshire, Clackmannanshire, East Renfrewshire, Glasgow City, Inverclyde, Orkney, North Lanarkshire, Stirling and South Lanarkshire councils.
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Johanna Baxter, UNISON Scotland head of local government, said: “We are in urgent negotiations with the employer to try and find a solution, but so far we have only had an offer of talks - we have not had a pay offer. Until we can explain to UNISON members how a pay offer might impact on them, council workers have been left with no choice but to strike.
“UNISON has been demanding pay talks for months and COSLA and the Scottish Government are still dragging their heels. Inflation is predicted to rise to more than 13 per cent and our members are struggling as fuel, food and household bills go through the roof.
“Until we have a decent pay offer that we can put to UNISON members our strike action will continue and thousands of school and early years workers will be talking action across nine councils in Scotland.”
GMB Scotland Senior Organiser for Public Services Keir Greenaway said: “These latest strike dates are a direct response by our members to the ongoing failure by political leaders to confront the biggest cost of living crisis in forty years.
“It is ridiculous that we are six months down the line since staff rejected the initial 2 per cent and unions are still trying to get an offer on the table that could help mitigate working poverty for tens of thousands of key workers in local government.
“Our members in schools and early years are among the lowest paid in our councils yet deliver vital services that support our kids’ education, help keep them fed, and their schools clean and safe – all too often they are forgotten workers of the Scottish education system.
“They deserved to be valued so much better, and they need to be too if they are able to survive the scourge of soaring inflation and energy bills in the weeks and months to come.”
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