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Porters ready to take pay fight to Holyrood

Ron Heeney, Ronnie Halliburton, Graham Nelson, Richard Murray, Colin Coupar and Ailsa Weir outside Ms Robisons constituency office in Dundee.
Ron Heeney, Ronnie Halliburton, Graham Nelson, Richard Murray, Colin Coupar and Ailsa Weir outside Ms Robisons constituency office in Dundee.

Striking porters are to take their cause to the Scottish Parliament after meeting Health Secretary Shona Robison.

In a bid to bring their industrial dispute into the national spotlight, more than 60 workers will rally outside Holyrood ahead of First Minister’s Questions on Thursday.

The move follows a long-anticipated meeting with Dundee East MSP Ms Robison, who has been criticised for not doing more to help end the bitter pay dispute between the Unite union and NHS Tayside.

Colin Coupar, a regional organiser for the union, said the health secretary should help all sides get around the table to end the strike.

“It was a productive meeting,” he said. “The main issue was the effort to get NHS Tayside to contemplate a settlement.

“She has been trying to move things forward, as have we.

“We had a frank exchange and we will we see what she is able to do.

“We have to move the talks along to get some resolution.”

Mr Coupar added more than 60 porters are expected to make the trip to Edinburgh on Thursday.

He said some Unite representatives had already spoken with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who was “talking sympathetically”.

“We’re hoping to have a question raised in the parliament. The First Minister met with these guys (two shop stewards with Unite) at the STUC conference in Ayr.

“Again she made the right noises, but we want this sorted, so the trip to Edinburgh is a follow-up to that.

“The First Minister was talking sympathetically, but we want to know what is stalling.”

Unite have been involved in the industrial dispute with NHS Tayside over porters’ pay since last summer.

The union argue that porters at Ninewells and Royal Victoria hospitals were placed in the wrong pay band for more than a decade.

NHS Tayside strenuously deny any error on their part and argue that the porters have been correctly paid.

The resulting dispute has led to ongoing strike action, which began 12 weeks ago.