NHS employees are preparing to go on strike after rejecting a five per cent pay increase.
The GMB union will today launch their ballot for industrial action and health workers could stage a walk-out in November.
It comes as staff claim years of below-inflation pay rises have left many on the breadline and needing to use food banks.
Union members are expected to vote in favour of action after rejecting the Scottish Government’s latest increase in June. Government officials said the offer was “the biggest single year pay rise NHS Agenda for Staff have seen since devolution”.
A Holyrood spokesman said the offer “would ensure our staff continue to remain the best paid in the UK”.
But GMB Scotland Organiser Karen Leonard said: “NHS key workers are struggling in the grip of this cost-of-living crisis and the services they deliver are chronically understaffed.
“If the Scottish Government wants to recruit and retain the workers needed to tackle these pressures, then it must value them better. That’s the clear message GMB members have consistently warned the Health Secretary since he tabled his ‘final offer’ of a five per cent across-the-board increase in June.
“If the Government wants to avoid the real prospect of winter strikes affecting NHS services, then it must improve this offer to help confront the cost-of-living crisis and deliver it on a flat-rate basis, so the biggest cash rises go to the lowest paid workers.”
Lab worker Sean Robertson says he has to drive 40 miles to his parents’ home each day because he can no longer afford his own accommodation. The 42-year-old, who works at Raigmore Hospital, Inverness, earns less than £24,000 a year.
He said: “It was a struggle before the pandemic and before the increased food and fuel costs and rent going up.
“By the time I pay my bills, there is no money left. I know some people who are staying on at work to avoid having to put the heating on at home.
“Around 50 per cent of staff in a recent survey said they wanted to leave the NHS and if the Government wants to stop that exodus they need to pay a fair wage.
“Nobody wants to rush to the picket lines but if we want a sustainable NHS going forward, we have to do it now.”
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