Parks and Greenspaces – Unite CEC Branch

Pay offer to be imposed—strike suspended (updated 21 November)

Pay deal to be in place from 21 December pay

COSLA Leaders met on Friday and agreed to impose the latest pay offer.

The Council have confirmed that this will be implemented and staff will receive their backpay in the 21 December pay. Read Andrew Kerr’s update, which includes the new salaries and hourly rates.

The latest offer is the same as the previous, but the uplift for some workers (GR5 to the bottom of GR11) that they were due to receive from January 2024, will now be for the full year from April 2023.

Unison have suspended all strike action while they consult their members on this offer. The Unison ballot closes on 28 November. Unison nationally are recommending their members accept the offer, but branches—such as Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee—are recommending reject.

Get ready for next year

Ballot results are in—Unite and GMB accept, Unison reject

Unite accepts COSLA pay deal with 72% in favour

Members of all unions of the Scottish Joint Council—Unite, Unison and GMB—have now had their say on the latest COSLA pay offer:

Unite have accepted the deal, with 72% of members in favour.
Unison have rejected the deal, with 89% rejecting.
GMB have accepted, with 62%.

Unison have promised further industrial action in schools before the end of the year, however details are yet to be publicised.

We now await COSLA’s response.

Pay update—members balloted on new offer

Unison strikes to go ahead.
Unite and GMB suspend their strike action.

COSLA submitted a new offer, noted as their ‘best and final’, on 21 September. Unite, Unison and GMB are balloting their members on the offer.

Unison are going ahead with their planned industrial action in schools next week and are recommending their members reject the offer.

Unite and GMB have suspended all industrial action while they ballot their members to see if they accept or reject the offer.

The offer

From 1 April 2023:

Pay update—Members in education ready to strike across Scotland

Unite members working in schools and early years now have a mandate to strike in 12 councils across Scotland. GMB similarly have a mandate to strike in 10 councils. Unison’s ballot closed on 25 August and they have a mandate to strike in 24 councils. This means there are strike mandates for 25 of Scotland’s 32 councils.

The three unions will meet at the end of the month to discuss the plan for industrial action in the fight for this year’s pay deal. The offer on the table is the first one COSLA made—between 5 and 7% depending on where you are on the pay scale.

In Edinburgh

In Edinburgh, we didn’t get the 50% turnout required in order to strike. Neither did the GMB.

Unison’s ballot closed on 25 August and they have achieved a mandate to strike.

Members should read our guide on what to do when others are on strike to understand their rights and what they can do to support the strikers.

Councils that may strike

The list below shows which unions have a mandate to strike in which council. Some Unite councils are reballoting members, so this may grow:

Council worker strikes loom over the World Cycling Championship

First strike wave over council pay to hit Glasgow on 3 August

In June, Unite, Unison and the GMB balloted local government members to take action to disrupt the World Cycling Championships 2023, which take place across Scotland from 3 to 13 August. GMB and Unite now have mandates to strike, covering parking wardens and staff at the Emirates area.

The event kicks off in Glasgow 0n the 3rd, when the first day of industrial will take place. Read about Unite’s strike action.

The purpose of the industrial action is to bring the Scottish Government to the table to improve the pay offer. COSLA have had ample opportunity go to the government to request funding to improve the offer on the table, but they have refused to do so. The current offer averages between a 5.5 and 7.5% pay increase for council workers. With inflation (RPI) sitting at 10.7% and food inflation around 20%, this amounts to a real-terms pay cut and further devalues council worker jobs, following over a decade of pay cuts.

Schools ballot

The cycle race is the first wave of strike action to get a fair pay deal for council workers. The second wave will be schools.

The ballot for all workers in schools opened on 19 June and closes on 31 July.

Sign up to access The Orb

All Council employees can now access The Orb using their own device. The Orb gives you direct access to all policies and procedures, as well as

structure charts to understand your department
information about training
redeployment opportunities
health and safety information
internal job adverts.

To sign up you need your staff number and National Insurance number.

This is a great step to making sure workers get access to information and we encourage all members to sign up and make themselves familiar with how to find policies and training that could be helpful.

School and early years workers—vote to strike now!

Vote now to fight for a fair pay deal for council workers

Yesterday (19 June) Unite began sending out ballots to all members in schools and early years across Scotland to ask if you will strike over pay.

The current pay offer is a significant real terms pay cut, as inflation (RPI) remains well above 10%, with food inflation around 20%. Year after year of real terms pay cuts devalues jobs by driving down the spending power you have, and in turn your quality of life. A job in which you could be comfortable 10 years ago, may see you on the breadline now. We know that this is the case for many members—and the only way to change this is to fight back.

Last year, workers in Waste and Cleansing fought on behalf of all Council workers. As a result, we got the Scottish Government to the negotiating table and achieved an award worth an additional £600m. This put, on average, an extra £1,500 in the pocket of each Edinburgh Council worker.

This year school workers are fighting for your pay.

Cleaners at Leith Academy are ready to fight back!

If you work in a school and are Council staff…

Watch your letterbox for the ballot! This is a postal ballot only. Please return your ballot as soon as you receive it.

It is crucial that all members that receive a ballot return it.