SNP ministers have been told to find extra cash to end a refuse worker pay dispute as talks continue to end rubbish piled up on streets.
Union bosses and Cosla, which represents Scottish councils, have been unable to reach a deal so far – rejecting a revised 5% increase amid soaring levels of inflation.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said Holyrood ministers must come up with the money needed to end the pay dispute between council workers and local government bosses.
But the Scottish Government has previously warned that pay deals cannot be afforded without increased funding from Westminster.
READ MORE: David Bol: Council funding mistrust causing rubbish pile-ups
Mr Sarwar made the plea as talks continued over the weekend between trade union leaders and Cosla.
The first wave of strikes saw cleansing staff in Edinburgh walk out on August 18, with the action in the capital coinciding with the busy festivals period.
With no deal yet to end the dispute, action spread last week, with the majority of councils now impacted by similar strikes.
Bosses at Public Health Scotland have already warned the build-up of waste could “become a risk to human health”, telling councils that “decontamination of public areas where bins have overflowed may be required”.
Mr Sarwar backed demands from trade unions for local government workers in Scotland – who have so far been offered a five per cent pay rise – to get a similar increase to the £1,925 offered to council staff in the rest of the UK.
While the Scottish Government has already given councils an extra £140 million to increase workers’ pay, Mr Sarwar insisted ministers needed to contribute more.
Without further cash from the Scottish Government, the Labour leader said the shortfall would have to be met by “councils having to cut their budgets even further”.
Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland’s The Sunday Show, Mr Sarwar said: “The Scottish Government, yes they put £140 million in to support the uplift. But rather than cutting council budgets more I think they need to find more money.
“If they have a longer term financial challenge they can make a one-off bonus payment to build up that money.”
Funding identified in the Scottish Government’s emergency budget review could be used, the Labour leader suggested, along with some of the “hundreds of millions of pounds of reserves” that ministers have.
Mr Sarwar said: “They also have that secret money hidden at the back of the sofa that they normally pull out every time there is a budget deal to be had or when they want to announce their own pet projects.
“Let’s have transparency, accountability, find the cash, pay these workers properly, get workers back to what they want to do, working and not being on strike and cleaning up our cities and towns across this country.”
His accused the Scottish Government of having slashed £6 billion from local authorities’ budgets since 2013-14.
“Even in the David Cameron austerity years, when the Scottish budget went down by 4%, they were tripling that and giving a 12% cut to local government,” Mr Sarwar said.
“This is a national dispute and the SNP, the Scottish Government, the SNP-run Cosla, have a duty to support these workers.
“What I hope we will see today is the unions getting what they have been demanding. I support this campaign that we have a flat rate that is similar to the increase they are getting in England, so around £1,900.
“Rather than giving 5% to every worker across the board that would target support to the poorest and the lowest earning income holders in councils.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel