Media Calling Notice
Media Calling Notice: GMB Scotland COSLA Pay Demonstration
Where: COSLA Conference Centre, Verity House, 19 Haymarket Yards, Edinburgh, EH12 5BH
When: 10.00 AM, Friday 17 June 2022
Council workers to warn COSLA leaders over “pathetic” 2 per cent pay offer
GMB Scotland will tomorrow (Friday 17 June) warn local government leaders attending the COSLA Convention they must do more on pay to stop tens of thousands of staff falling below the breadline this year.
Local government members will hold a small demonstration to highlight again that the current offer of 2 per cent – which was rejected overwhelmingly by GMB Scotland members – is unacceptable amid soaring inflation and eye-watering energy bills.
GMB Scotland is currently balloting nearly 10,000 members in waste and recycling and schools and early years for industrial action, with the ballot due to close on Tuesday 27 July.
GMB Scotland Senior Organiser Keir Greenaway said: “In the grip of the biggest cost of living crisis in forty years the prospect of the lowest-paid local government workers getting a rise that amounts to less than a tenner a week is pathetic.
“The pay offers across the public sector for the NHS and Scotrail show that local government has been put to the back of the queue, and it sends an appalling message to staff who have selflessly served their communities throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
“But more pressing is the fact that nearly half of the workforce falls into the bracket of the lowest earners and a 2 per cent increase for hard-pressed staff earning less than £25,000 a year means tens of thousands of key workers are at real risk of falling below the breadline.
“If COSLA and the Scottish Government want to avoid strikes later this summer, then they must show they really do value our local government workers by tabling a substantially improved pay offer as soon as possible.”
ENDS
Contact: GMB Scotland Senior Organiser Keir Greenaway on 07855 017842 or GMB Scotland Communications on 07976 447077.
Notes to Editors:
“Key workers who kept country going during pandemic facing poverty amid cost of living crisis”, Sunday Mail 1 May 2022, access at: <<Key workers who kept country going in pandemic 'facing poverty amid cost of living crisis' - Daily Record>>
The Chartered Institute for Personnel Development (CIPD) says a person is living in poverty when their income after housing cost is less than 60% of the national average salary, which is £31,400. 60% is just below £19,000 a year. Access this definition at: <<What is in-work poverty? | CIPD>>
