COSLA leaders must make substantially increased offer to avert strikes, says UNISON
4th August 2022
COSLA leaders meet tomorrow (Friday 5 August 2022) to discuss the local government pay offer and how they can avert substantial, long term, strikes in 1200 schools and early years centres and waste and recycling centres in councils across Scotland .
UNISON is urging COSLA to use this leaders meeting to agree a substantially improved pay offer to avert serious disruption across Scotland - otherwise few if any councils will avoid some level of significant disruption.
Johanna Baxter, UNISON Scotland head of local government said: "COSLA leaders and the Scottish Government need to understand the seriousness of this situation. The joint trade unions who represent local government workers have had extensive discussions to plan and co-ordinate industrial action cross Scotland. If council leaders do not substantially improve their pay offer for local government workers UNISON, along with Unite and the GMB, will be notifying employers in the coming days of planned long-term disruptive strike action.
We have already written to COLSA to warn them that the trade unions have between them legal mandates to disrupt the operation of over 1,200 schools across 16 local authorities and the waste/recycling services across 25 local authorities in Scotland. They have done little to try and engage with us, even though we stand ready to talk to them. The last thing UNISON members want to do is strike. But that's what we will do unless a substantially improved offer is on the table after tomorrow's meeting."
• UNISON is the largest union in local government.
• The UNISON branches that met the required threshold are: City of Glasgow, Orkney Islands Council, Aberdeenshire Council, East Renfrewshire Council, North Lanarkshire Council, South Lanarkshire Council, Clackmannanshire Council, Stirling Council, Inverclyde. These mandates cover over 13,000 local government workers.
• COSLA offer is here: https://unison-scotland.org/wp-content/uploads/22-02-28-SJC-Letter-of-Offer.doc
• Trade union pay claim is here: https://unison-scotland.org/wp-content/uploads/SJC-Pay-Claim-2022.pdf
• National Employers for local government services (UK) LOCAL GOVERNMENT PAY 2022 - pay offer: https://unison-scotland.org/wp-content/uploads/Emps-to-NJC-TUs-pay-offer-25Jul22.pdf
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