Category: News

School and early years staff will be on strike

UNISON has sent notices to nine councils across Scotland today the
23/08/2022 that school and early years staff will be on strike on the following dates:

6th, 7th and 8th of September,

This is after a lack of progress in talks with COSLA over council pay.

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.

Members in Schools, Early Years and Nurseries will receive additional
communications over the next few days with more details.

No worker wants to take strike action, but the reality is if we don’t get an approved offer many of our members will be pushed into poverty due to the obscene price increases and blatant profiteering of the big energy and fuel companies.

Disaggregated Strike Action

Rather than calling for a full strike of all workers in the council, selecting smaller groups of workers for industrial action will cause disruption within the employers. This is disaggregated action

Our branch has successfully balloted members in Schools, Nurseries, Waste and Recycling for strike action.

Please support us

We are asking all members to support our strikers and even if you are not being asked to take industrial action there is a vital part you can play to secure better pay for all local government staff. Together We Rise In UNISON

  • Pin badges will be available for you to wear to show your support for the strike.

Waste services will undertake industrial action

This week our colleagues in Waste services will undertake industrial action, this action is on behalf of every Local Government worker to let the employer know that a derisory pay offer is not acceptable.

UNISON is the largest Trade Union representing Local Government workers and has already served notice of strike action in eight local authorities.

The notices of action were served to Aberdeenshire, Clackmannanshire, East Renfrewshire, Glasgow City, Inverclyde, North Lanarkshire, Stirling and South Lanarkshire councils for the first wave of strike action to take place on the following dates:

26th, 27th, 28th and 29th August and the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th September

UNISON has also sent notices to nine councils across Scotland today the 23/08/2022 that school and early years staff will be on strike on the 6th, 7th and 8th of September, after a lack of progress in talks with COSLA over council pay.

The Branch Executive are very proud that our members have stepped up to take on this fight and we will be doing everything we can to promote this campaign and force the employers back to the negotiating table to reach a fair settlement.

No worker wants to take strike action, but the reality is if we don’t get an approved offer many of our members will be pushed into poverty due to the obscene price increases and blatant profiteering of the big energy and fuel companies.

Disaggregated Action – What is it?

UNISON, on this occasion, have balloted selected services for industrial action. This is called Disaggregated Action.

Rather than calling for a full strike of all workers in the council, selecting smaller groups of workers for industrial action will cause disruption within the employers.

Our branch has successfully balloted members in Schools, Nurseries, Waste and Recycling for strike action.

It’s important to highlight again that these colleagues will be taking this action on behalf of all workers in the Council. We are asking all members to support our strikers and even if you are not being asked to take industrial action there is a vital part you can play to secure better pay for all local government staff. Together We Rise In UNISON

  • Pin badges will be available for you to wear to show your support for the strike.
  • Attend the STUC “Scotland Demands a Pay Rise” Demonstration. More info on transport for those that need it will follow.

Thursday 8th September

Assemble 10:30am:
Johnson Terrace,
Edinburgh

EH1 2PW

March off: 11am

  • Our colleagues in waste services will picket from 6am till 1pm – Drop by and give them hello or give them a wave or a toot of the horn if you’re driving past the waste and recycling sites.
  • Be sure to look out for posts on our branch Facebook and ensure you, your family and your friends share them. It’s important for the public to know how dire the situation in local government has become. Show us your support in the comments.

Keep up to date on the pay campaign including our UNISON Pay FAQs at https://unison-scotland.org/local-government-pay-2022/

LG Pay Update

First set of strike dates confirmed

UNISON have this morning served notice on 8 local authorities of strike dates for waste and recycling members. These dates align with the dates also notified to authorities this morning by the GMB.  It is unfortunate that they do not align with the dates Unite have already notified but that was not for the want of trying to achieve an agreed approach.


Please see press release on link below

Strike dates for waste workers confirmed

Strike dates for schools/early years will be confirmed in due course.

We are holding an online general meeting on Thursday 18th August at 6p.m and all members are required to attend. Please see the following brief agenda below for the meeting. If members able to attend please contact the branch on the following e-mail address thomsonl34s@stirling.gov.uk and a link will be forwarded to you prior to the meeting.

Agenda

  • Pay update
  • Motion to transfer monies to IA account

The UNISON Scotland LG leads will be meeting branches with a strike mandate on Monday to discuss preparation for action.

We are also working on supporting materials/advice to members taking action and resources for those who are not so they can demonstrate their support for those Workers taking action on their behalf. 

Further information on all of that will follow asap – you will appreciate that things are moving at pace at the moment but we will, as always we will communicate any developments as soon as we have more detail.

Council strikes to go ahead after UNISON rejects derisory 3.5% pay offer

UNISON, the largest union in local government, met today to discuss COSLA’s latest 3.5% pay offer. The union unanimously agreed to reject this revised offer outright and voted overwhelmingly to continue with their strike plans in councils across Scotland.

UNISON rejected the offer as it has not sufficiently improved, falls far short of the Joint Trade Union’s claim (submitted in January) and falls far short of the current rate of inflation, which continues to rise.

The union also made the point that the offer falls far short of the offer made to council workers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland who have been offered a £1925 flat rate uplift, which equates to a 10.5% increase for those on the lowest wages.

Johanna Baxter, UNISON head of local government said: “This is another derisory pay offer. We are in a ridiculous position of both our employers and the Scottish Government agree this 3.5% pay offer is not nearly enough, but both are at loggerheads about who should pay for it.

Meanwhile council workers – over half earn less than £25k per year – are worrying about paying the bills. Inflation is predicted to rise to 13.5% and our members are offered a real-terms pay cut which will plunge more of them into debt.

We have written to COSLA to tell them the strike continues in waste and recycling and we will confirm dates for strike action in schools and early years in the coming days.”