Fed-up bin workers in Perth and Kinross are set to go on strike for four days.
An official picket line at the council’s Friarton Depot will mark the start of the industrial action at 7am on Thursday.
Union UNISON has warned the disruption is “just the start”, as school workers in the local authority area are also being balloted.
Workers in favour of strike action
UNISON members in Waste and Recycling in Perth & Kinross have voted in favour of the action after rejecting a 5% pay increase.
Unison waste and recycling workers in Stirling and Perth and Kinross voted to take industrial action in a ballot that closed last month.
They will be going out for four days from 10-13 August.
School staff are currently also being asked to vote in the dispute. The union will decide on whether to ballot additional groups of workers in the coming months.
A spokesman for the union said that earlier this year, UNISON consulted its entire local government membership (84,000) on COSLA’s pay offer.
This was a 5% increase from April 2023, plus an additional increase that varied depending on an individual’s salary payable from January 2024. The union’s members voted overwhelmingly to reject (87%) this.
Nine in ten (90%) of those who rejected the offer also voted to take some form of strike action to secure an improved wage increase.
UNISON Perth & Kinross Branch Secretary, Stuart Hope said: “COSLA’s offer falls short of UNISON’s pay claim.
“It is also less than the offer made to the lowest paid local government staff south of the border and it would be a real-terms pay cut during the cost of living crisis.
Council staff ‘fed-up’
“Council staff in Perth are fed up. And the upcoming four days of action by our members in Waste and Recycling is just the start.
“Over 700 of our members in schools are also currently being balloted and should look out for their ballots, which will arrive in purple envelopes, vote and post back as soon as possible.”
UNISON Scotland head of local government, Johanna Baxter said: “Despite efforts to move negotiations along, we’re now at an impasse. COSLA has refused to improve its pay offer, which UNISON members overwhelmingly rejected.
“It also says it doesn’t have the cash to offer more but is also refusing to ask the Scottish government for additional funding”.
