Falkirk Council: Refuse workers begin planned eight-day strike over pay

Union leaders said they would be on strike for the next eight days.

Industrial action in Edinburgh has already seen rubbish pile up on the streets of the capital.

Members of Unite the Union, Unison and the GMB all turned down an initial pay offer of two per cent and an increased offer of 3.5 per cent last week.

Unite industrial officer, Wendy Dunsmore said: “Unite has rejected outright the five per cent pay offer and strike action across 14 councils will go ahead. It’s a sad indictment that council workers in Scotland are being offered substantially less than their counterparts in England.”

“The cold hard reality is that inflation and energy costs are soaring – and they are predicted to rise even higher. The five per cent today will not be worth the same in a matter of months when the cost of living crisis will bite even harder. The offer on the table just doesn’t help the lowest paid make ends meet.”

“This dispute will continue to escalate to a point where it could now go beyond the winter causing months of massive nationwide disruption. The blame for this will lie squarely at the doors of CoSLA and the Scottish Government.”

Falkirk Council has said due to “uncertainty around staff availability” means they don’t know whether bins will be emptied or not on any given day.

A spokesperson said: “For this reason, our advice is to put your bin out by 6.30am on your normal collection day but take it back in if it is not emptied by the end of the day.”

They added that services which are likely to be impacted are: resident and commercial wheeled bin collections; recycling centres at Roughmute and Kinneil; litter bins; street litter and fly tipping clearances; and resident collections.

The council say if green bins filled with landfill waste are not emptied on the correct day they should be placed out from Thursday, September 1 and they will be collected as soon as possible.

If blue, burgundy, brown bin or black box are not emptied during the strike period, they should not be put it out again until the next scheduled collection day, as they will not have the resource to catch up in between.

Food and AHP collections will occur as normal on strike days, as they are collected by a council contractor. However, collection times may differ.

The spokesperson added: “We will not be in a position to collect any additional waste when bins are collected either during, or on your first scheduled collection after the strike period ends.

“Bulky uplift collections are suspended, please refer to our website for further details.

"During the notified strike days we may not be in a position to service street litter bins or collect fly tipped material.

“Be assured that we will endeavour to clear any waste build up as soon as we can.”