Waste Collection Services Strike In Highland From 24 August
22nd August 2022
Notification of Industrial Action by Unite and GMB Unions - Pay Award.
At a special meeting of council leaders on Friday 19 August, an improved pay offer has been put to the SJC unions raising the overall over value of the offer to 5% and increasing the Scottish Local Government Living Wage to £10.50 per hour. The national unions are considering the offer.
The Council however has been notified by Unite the Union and GMB of industrial action which will take place in the Waste, Street Cleaning and Recycling Service across the Highlands. No other services and staff are covered by this industrial action.
The following dates have been identified as strike days by each union:
Unite the Union - Wednesday 24 August from 05:00 until Thursday 1 September 2022 04:59
GMB - Friday 26 August from 00:00 and continuing until Monday 29 August at 23:59. Then Wednesday 7 September from 00:00 until Saturday 10 September 23:59
Unless the council is notified of any suspension of strike action arising from the revised pay offer, strike action will commence on Wednesday 24 August. There may be a disruption to service delivery for bin collections, street cleaning and recycling centres across the Highlands during these dates. Updated information on waste services will be provided throughout any periods of Industrial action.
Edinburgh is in the middle of a 10 day strike for waste services and most other council in Scotland are seeing industrial action. The pay offer goes no where near the imminent cost of living increase on top of what has already been happening in recent months.
The demand is for a 10% rise. £10.50 may be rise it will still mean poverty for may workers. On Friday later this week Ofgem will set then new CAP for energy prices and it is expected to double for households and expected to go even higher in January 2023. Even with the government help announced everyone will be worse off. Pay rises are the only way most people can cover it all.
