Falkirk Council: School strike latest

Despite 94.04 per cent of the union’s members in the area who took part in the ballot voting in favour of striking, it failed to get the 50 per cent turnout needed under trade union law for action. Only 49.4 per cent of the membership working in schools took part in the ballot which is over the current pay offer.

Nearly 2000 Unison members across Scotland will walk out in 24 council areas in a bid to secure a better pay deal for all local government workers.

Although the eight other council areas saw large votes in favour of strike action they did not get the turnout required, according to Unison following the result of the ballot which closed today.

However, Falkirk Council’s schools and early years centres are likely to be affected by the industrial action by members of GMB Scotland on September 13 and 14. They are among non-teaching staff from ten local authorities across the country who voted in favour of the action after rejecting a pay offer.

Their membership work in catering, cleaning, pupil support, administration and janitorial services.

The union’s members rejected the councils’ offer of 5.5 per cent in April branding it unacceptable when inflation has surged inflicting a cost-of-living crisis.

The employers’ organisation Cosla said the "strong" pay offer represented a 7 per cent rise on average, with the lowest paid council workers receiving a more than 9 per cent increase.

Councillor Katie Hagmann, Cosla resources spokeswoman, said a special leaders meeting had been called to find a "swift" resolution to strike action.

Following a leaders meeting today (Friday) to discuss the pay offer, she said: “We had a good positive meeting of council leaders earlier today at which they once again reiterated how much they value the whole of the local government workforce.

“In relation to this year’s pay negotiations for the SJC workforce, we discussed options for concluding these negotiations as soon as the outcome of current ballots are known, and to this end, there was agreement to hold a special meeting of leaders as soon as we possibly can.”