Council workers to be balloted on industrial action
Trade Union UNISON have recommended local government workers reject the current offer from COSLA - now they are balloting their members on further action to secure a better deal.
Last updated 13th Apr 2021
UNISON, the largest trade union in local government, is consulting its members on whether they are prepared to take industrial action to secure a better pay offer from COSLA.
The consultative ballot runs from today (Tuesday 13 April) until 28 April and comes after UNISON’s Local Government Committee agreed to recommend that members vote to reject the current pay offer and vote to take industrial action up to strike action to secure an improvement.
The current pay offer by COSLA was made on 15 March.
The Joint Trade Unions, representing the bulk of local government workers in Scotland, had previously given COSLA a deadline of the 1 April to present an improved offer. No improvement to the offer was received by that date and the Joint Trade Unions confirmed their decision to consult members with a recommendation to reject.
The Joint Trade Unions state that local government workers have gone above and beyond in their response to the Covid pandemic – keeping local services going in the most difficult of circumstances. COSLA have frequently praised their efforts and previously committed to ensuring that issues of reward and recognition would be addressed through these pay negotiations. The Joint Trade Unions do not believe they have been.
Johanna Baxter, UNISON Scotland head of local government said: "According to COSLA’s own figures over half of the Scottish local government workforce earn less than £25k per year and over 100,000 workers earn significantly below the average wage of £32k per year. The current offer does not address the issue of endemic low pay for these workers.
Without these workers going above and beyond to keep services running over the past year their colleagues in the NHS would have been left without childcare, our mortuaries would have been overwhelmed, our children would have been left without an education and our elderly would have been left without care. Yet to date they have received no reward or recognition of their efforts at all. It’s simply not good enough.”
A COSLA Spokesperson said: “We have made an offer to our trade union colleagues. This offer remains on the table whilst we continue with on-going constructive negotiations.”