Falkirk Council: Striking refuse staff thanks public for support on the picket line

The ongoing pay dispute has stopped bins being emptied and kept recycling centres closed for a week so far.

But despite bins starting to overflow across the district, at the picket line outside Roughmute recycling centre today (Tuesday) many of the cars streaming past ‘tooted’ their horns to show their support.

Kevin Robertson, the chair of Falkirk Council branch of Unite, said that members had found it “quite moving” to have received so much support over the past week.

He said: “We really do appreciate and actually it’s quite moving the level of support that we’ve had from the public – not only toots and waves and thumbs up as they go by but many members of the public have just turned up with coffee, juice, bacon rolls, egg rolls, sausage rolls, crisps, cakes and sweeties.

“It’s really pleasing to see that in this day and age there is still some camaraderie between working people who realise that all we are asking for is a decent pay rise and to be treated with respect, regardless of the job that they do.”

Two of Falkirk Council’s elected members also joined the striking workers on Tuesday morning – Labour councillor Euan Stainbank and Independent councillor Billy Buchanan, who are both also members of Unite.

Councillor Stainbank said: “I’m here to support the workers because being in the Labour party and being a Labour councillor means that whenever workers decide to strike and take action to protect their terms and conditions and their pay, we need to be standing next to them.

“I think this local government dispute is the culmination of years of local government funding cuts.

“As a younger person, I’ve seen council services go downhill and that’s not on the workers, that’s because our central governments – both in Westminster and Holyrood – have failed to provide proper funding for local government for years.”

“CoSLA needs to get back round the table and come up with an offer that is going to drastically help workers out while we are dealing with this cost of living crisis.”

Waving a large Unite flag, Councillor Billy Buchanan said that as a retired member of Unite and as an ex-shop steward he was here to support his colleagues. “It’s as simple as that,” he said.

And he agreed that the public did seem to have remained supportive of the targeted action waste workers are taking on behalf of all council staff.

“I think if you speak to most of the community, obviously the effects of not getting their bins picked up is maybe drastic, but everybody out there is the same, we simply support them,” he said.

The latest offer made to council workers has been rejected by Unite, who say the deal does not do enough for the lowest paid members of staff.

Unison and GMB will consult their members on the offer but they are recommending refusal.