SCOTTISH trade unionists are set to march upon the Scottish Parliament next month in protest at “utterly unsustainable” public sector pay cuts amidst the ongoing cost-of-living crisis gripping the UK.
The march and rally – which will take place on 8 September – follows a summit on the crisis in June held by the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) and the Poverty Alliance, which united a coalition of Scottish community groups and trade unions against the rising cost of living.
The announcement also comes amidst numerous ballots and industrial actions from unions on pay, terms and conditions across local government, education, health and transport across the country.
This week, it was confirmed that British postal workers will hold four days of strikes in August and September over pay, in what could be the biggest industrial action in the UK this summer.
NHS nurses in England and Wales will vote next month on whether to strike, raising the possibility of the first ever industrial action held by members of the Royal College of Nursing union in England and Wales.
STUC general secretary Roz Foyer said that workers across Scotland had been subject to an “appalling” attack on their living standards, with real terms pay across the nation falling by an “eye-watering” 15% over the past decade.
Foyer said: “This is utterly unsustainable. We’ve warned both the Scottish and UK Government that workers would not be idle. Scotland demands better and we won’t leave workers in the lurch in their hour of need."
Saying that they were taking the fight directly to the Scottish Government, Foyer added: “Our demands are entirely within the remit of our parliament. We need to see the politicians who work there listen to the people who put them there.”
Noting the TUC’s “We Demand Better March” in London on 18 June, Foyer said that after the trade union movement’s confrontation with the UK Government, they were now “telling the Scottish Government the time for constitutional hand-wrangling is over".
She added: “Scotland’s workers need action and we need to see an immediate cost of living pay increase for our public sector workers.”
