Falkirk Council: School strikes update following increased pay offer

While Unison, the largest public sector union, has said strike action by its members will go ahead, both the GMB and Unite have agreed to suspend the industrial action to ballot members on a new pay offer.

This means strikes by support staff including janitors, cleaners, catering staff and classroom assistants will not go ahead in many local authority areas.

Late this afternoon Falkirk Council confirmed all its schools and early learning centres would be open, after it previously wrote to all parents informing them of next week’s closures.

However, with Unison members in 24 local authorities striking, schools and early learning centres in these areas will be closed on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

At the 11th hour, the Scottish government freed up £80 million so local authority body Cosla could improve the offer, which would include a rise of about £2000 a year for the lowest paid.

GMB Scotland, which represents more than 21,000 staff in local authorities, said Cosla, representing Scotland’s 32 councils, had significantly improved its offer and members should be given the chance to vote on it.

Keir Greenaway, GMB Scotland senior organiser in public services, said: “It would be wrong to suggest this offer is not a clear improvement on those that came before it, especially for the lowest paid workers.

“GMB is a trade union led by its members and it is absolutely right they are asked to decide on what is a significantly better offer.

“Cosla has itself highlighted how far it has advanced since April which only begs the question why it took so many months to make an offer worth discussing with our members?

“We remain disappointed it took first the threat and then the looming reality of strike action in Scotland’s schools before we saw any sign of leadership from Cosla.

“Whatever our members decide, lessons should be learned from these needlessly protracted negotiations to ensure workers, parents and pupils do not endure similar uncertainty in future.”