Some council workers in Tayside and Fife are set to strike in November in a dispute over pay.
Trade unions that represent about 120,000 local authority workers in Scotland will ask members to join the five-day walk out, beginning on November 8.
Refuse and recycling workers in Dundee, Fife and Angus are among those set to be involved.
However, Tayside Contracts has confirmed that no school cleaning, catering and janitorial workers will be taking part in the strike.
It comes after Unite warned of a “winter of unrest” if the dispute continued and council bosses did not change their position.
Members of the unions backed industrial action in half of Scotland’s local authorities, including in Dundee, Angus and Fife.
No action has been announced among Perth and Kinross Council staff.
The joint trade unions have also written to ministers asking them to intervene – saying that it is “not credible” for the Scottish Government to “wash their hands of local government workers by arguing technicalities of the bargaining machinery”.
Why are council staff planning to strike?
John Gillespie, a Unite activist in Fife, says members of the union have “had enough”.
He said: “They’ve put up with poor offers year after year and they’ve worked on the frontline right through Covid.
“They feel it’s time to take a stand and it’s our intention to take groups of workers out on strike on November 8 for a week.”
Wendy Dunsmore, Unite industrial officer, said: “Unite’s members across 11 local authorities will be taking targeted strike action due to the abject failure by Cosla and the Scottish Government to pay workers a fair and decent wage.
“The incredible professionalism and sacrifice by local government workers has not been recognised during the Covid-19 pandemic, and Unite’s members will no longer tolerate being treated as the poor relation in our public services.
Offer ‘doesn’t bring the lowest paid to £10 per hour’
“School cleaners, caterers and janitors alongside fleet maintenance, waste and refuse workers are saying enough is enough.”
Johanna Baxter, Unison Scotland head of local government, says the strike is a result of the “combined failure” of Cosla and the Scottish Government to reward council key workers.
She said: “Over 55% of [local government] workers earn below £25k per year, and the vast majority have received no reward at all for their efforts during the Covid pandemic.
“The current offer does not even bring the lowest paid (local government) workers up to £10 per hour.”
A spokesperson for Cosla, the umbrella body representing councils across Scotland, said: “We appreciate everything that Local Government workers have been doing, and continue to do, to support people and communities during the pandemic and as we begin to recover.
“We continue with ongoing constructive negotiations.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Public sector workers – including local government staff – continue to be integral to tackling the pandemic in Scotland.
Pay negotiations ‘a matter for Cosla’
“Finance Secretary Kate Forbes is in no doubt about the crucial role that local government staff play and has regularly commended them and thanked them for their efforts.
“The Scottish Government is not involved in the local government pay negotiations. Pay settlements for council workers (excluding teachers) are a matter for Cosla and are determined through negotiations at the Scottish Joint Committee (SJC).
“The Scottish Government is not a member of the SJC and council pay is therefore not a matter it can intervene in. It will be for trade union colleagues to reach a negotiated settlement with Cosla.”
