As the cost-of-living crisis deepens, workers are being forced into action. Thousands of cleansing and waste council workers from across Scotland, members of Unite, GMB and Unison, went on strike during the second half of August forcing the Scottish SNP government and its council umbrella body COSLA into making new and improved pay offers. Between 18 and 30 August, workers in Edinburgh refused to doff their cap to the prestigious Fringe Arts festival, with rubbish piling up, much to the embarrassment of the city’s Labour led council and the Scottish government. The Edinburgh strikers were joined by workers from another 20 of Scotland’s 32 local authorities who joined the strike action from 24 August onwards. On 30 August Scotland’s SNP Deputy First Minister John Swinney, who had been part of negotiations between the unions and COSLA, claimed that there was ‘no more money’ to offer striking workers. Owing to the pressure generated by the bin strike, the level of public support and the plan for a second wave of strikes starting on 6 September which would also involve nursery and school staff, the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was forced to intervene and, sure enough, more money was found.
The insulting 2% pay ‘rise’ originally offered had been increased to 3.5% and then to 5% as strike action escalated. The current pay offer, overseen by Sturgeon, roughly amounts to a 10% ‘rise’ for council workers annually earning up to £20,500; roughly 8% for workers on £25,000, declining to 5% for those earning over £39,000. With inflation running at over 10% and predicted to continue soaring in the months ahead, the ‘victory’ which trade union leaderships are claiming will not be felt on the ground for long. Council strikes in September were called off as the trade union leaderships recommended their members accept the latest offer. While the usual politicians from the SNP, Labour and Tories fall over each other to deflect blame away from capitalism, the working class will be forced to pay for its crisis.
One striking GMB cleansing worker in Glasgow told FRFI about the local council ‘Labour were in charge for years…the SNP, they’ve came in and said do this and do that, gave us all promises, done fuck all, until the strike action…So you cannae trust any of them, especially Labour’. And the SNP council that’s controlled Glasgow since 2017? ‘Theres nae difference, just as bad as the other, promise ye everything and deliver fuck all’.
Victory to the strikers!
Dominic Mulgrew
