Council workers to vote on strike

Council workers will vote on a 2.5% pay offer

Local government workers in Scotland are to be balloted on whether to take industrial action over pay.

Their counterparts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have voted in favour of strike action after rejecting the 2.5% offer.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the chancellor have both urged public sector workers to accept pay deals pegged to their 2% inflation target.

The Scottish ballot is due to be held throughout July.

Dougie Black of the Unison union said: "We have the result from England and Wales that shows a clear indication that our members will not accept the offer that is there from the employers.

'Publicity stunt'

"In Scotland we have separate bargaining arrangements and we are going to be balloting our members on an offer of 2.5% for each year for three years.

"Our claim was for 5% or £1,000 - whichever is the greater.

"This is about the fact that many of our workers have had to accept below inflation awards for the past three or four years, so they are simply playing catch-up."

Mr Black also claimed that, despite public statements saying they were still in negotiation, the Scottish local government employers Cosla had recently cancelled a negotiating meeting scheduled for Wednesday.

Instead of meeting Cosla, the union will now stage a lobby of the organisation's offices.

Joe Di Paola, of Cosla, said: "We would much rather they were in the building negotiating than outside taking part in nothing more than a publicity stunt.

"We did not cancel any negotiating meeting, on the contrary we have been keen to get them in for talks and are trying to arrange something for next week.

"There has to be a degree of realism from the unions in their claim - councils are operating within limited resources and are acutely aware that any extra money for pay would have to come out of services."