UNISON plans nationwide strike ballot after members reject revised council pay offer in Scotland

UNISON is planning a nationwide strike ballot in an escalation of its campaign on this year’s local government pay round in Scotland.

The union announced today that it intended to poll more than 90,000 staff across Scotland’s 32 councils on striking over employers’ body COSLA’s offer of a rise of 3.6% or 67p per hour, whichever is higher.

Unions split over pay offer

The proposed deal – an improvement on COSLA’s previous 3.2% offer – has been accepted by members of fellow unions GMB and Unite.

However, UNISON members overwhelming rejected the revised offer, with the union saying it fell short of expectations in the context of real-terms cuts to council workers’ pay since 2010.

A deal can only go through with the support of a majority of union members on negotiating body the Scottish Joint Council for Local Government Employees (SJC). As most of these seats are held by UNISON, the dispute remains unresolved.

The union already has a mandate to strike for waste and street cleaning staff in 13 councils, and one covering schools and early years workers in five authorities.

Strike ballot plans

However, in an escalation of the dispute, it today announced that it intended to ballot its whole local government membership on taking industrial action over the pay offer. UNISON said that such a ballot would take several weeks to arrange.

Its local government committee chair, Colette Hunter, said: “Thousands of council workers have overwhelmingly rejected COSLA’s pay offer.

“They are demanding a fair increase to prevent their pay from consistently lagging behind and to ensure their wage rise aligns with other sectors of the economy.”

‘Outrage’ over superior NHS deal

She pointed to the 5.5% pay rise agreed for NHS workers in Scotland adding that council staff were “outraged” that their offer fell “well below” this level.

UNISON’s statement follows a meeting of the SJC steering group yesterday, after which COSLA’s resources spokesperson, Katie Hagmann declared on X (formerly Twitter) that it was “so important to keep discussions open”.

COSLA has strongly welcomed Unite and GMB members’ acceptance of the offer, while declaring itself “deeply disappointed” by their UNISON counterparts’ rejection of the proposed deal.

Pay offer ‘at the absolute limit of affordability’

In a statement last week following the results of the UNISON vote, Hagmann, said the offer – worth an additional 4.27% on the pay bill and enabled by extra funding from the Scottish Government – was “at the absolute limit of affordability”.

“Local government have a responsibility to ensure sustainable service delivery for our communities across Scotland,” she said. “We are clear that increasing the value of any pay offer would have very serious consequences.

“We remain concerned that UNISON’s expectations cannot be met without further unpalatable difficult decisions. We are aware that communities will be concerned about the potential impact of industrial action on the most vulnerable.”