By Keith Aitken | 25 October 2013
Scotland’s 32 local authorities voted today to impose a two-year pay settlement on their staff after almost a year of negotiations with the trade unions failed to bring about an agreement.
The package, first tabled last November, follows two years of pay freeze, and is worth 1% from last April and a further 1% from 1 April 2014. The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities is also raising the wages of its lowest-paid workers to meet the Living Wage rate of £7.50 per hour, and is committed to meet a likely further rise in Living Wage due in the next few weeks.
Members of Unison, the biggest local authority union, rejected a call for industrial action in protest at the offer in a ballot in August, but, COSLA’s human resources spokesman Billy Hendry, said that the trade unions had been unable subsequently to agree a response on accepting the offer.
‘This cannot continue any longer – our employees deserve their pay rise now and we cannot allow the dragging of feet by Unison to continue,’ Hendry said.
‘We have been in negotiations with the Scottish Joint Council trade unions for almost a full year after making an initial offer in November 2012. The unions remain divided and the time has come to apply the deal. ‘
The deal excludes teachers, who have their own negotiating machinery, after members of the biggest teaching union, the Educational Institute of Scotland, voted last Monday to reject changes to their pay and conditions on which a similarly structured pay offer was contingent. There will be further talks with the teaching unions in November.
Hendry said it was ‘deeply frustrating’ not to be able to announce a settlement for the teachers at the present time.
