GMB Scotland tells COSLA there should be ‘no delay’ on council pay award

GMB Scotland tells COSLA there should be ‘no delay’ on council pay award.

GMB Scotland has today (Friday 12 May) called on the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) to assure concerned council workers that it will not impose a below inflation 1 per cent  pay increase for the next year.

Last month GMB members across local government voted by a majority of 69 per cent to accept a flat payment of £350 for workers earning below £35,000 a year and a 1 per cent rise for workers earning over £35,000 a year, a deal lifting the earnings of the lowest paid in councils by 18 pence an hour.

However, amid a failure to accept the deal across all local government trade unions, many council workers now fear COSLA will now revert to its fall-back position of a universal 1 per cent imposition if trade unions failed to accept the deal reached after months of negotiations.

With initial talks for the 2018/19 pay award due to start at the end of this summer, GMB is now calling on the urgent implementation of the 2017/18 deal to avoid the prospect of consecutive real-terms cuts to pay.

GMB Scotland Senior Organiser Tony Dowling said: “We can’t stand by and let the lowest paid get hit hard by the possibility of COSLA imposing 1 per cent across the board, their stated position in the event of a rejection of the 2017/18 offer.

The deal on the table is not perfect but it will help ease the pay pressure on occupations like home carers, school cleaners and caterers who have struggled at the coal-face of the austerity agenda for the last decade.

After prolonged negotiations we believe this is the best achievable deal without entering into what would be a very difficult industrial action and this is reflected in its acceptance by well over two-thirds of our members.

There should be no delay on pay. It’s no time to play fast and loose with people’s livelihoods and the deal needs to be implemented across all councils and arms-length bodies to avoid the prospect of a damaging pay cut.”

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Contact: GMB Scotland Senior Organiser Tony Dowling on 07958 477859 or Peter Welsh, GMB Scotland Communications, on 07979 447077.