COUNCIL workers across Scotland are being balloted for strike action over pay that could see schools and nurseries shut after summer.

Today, a ballot of 25,000 Unison members in schools, nurseries, waste and recycling centres, began calling for industrial action to increase a paltry 2 per cent pay rise offer. 

Johanna Baxter, Unison’s head of local government in Scotland, said that the proposed deal amounted to a real-terms pay cut and came “on the back of the Scottish government announcing cuts to public services that Margaret Thatcher would be proud of.”

The union said that it had urged First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Finance Secretary Kate Forbes to meet them to discuss funding for local authorities to improve the pay offer, but their request was turned down.

Ms Baxter said that the failure of the SNP government to intervene to help reach a settlement was “a kick in the teeth to all local government workers.

“They have forgotten already who was educating our children, cleaning our communities, caring for our vulnerable and burying our dead throughout the pandemic. Local government workers keep society running.”

Unison wrote to the Scottish government on June 1 but on Thursday Ms Forbes told the union, alongside Unite and GMB, that while her government worked “hard to maintain good relations” it “would not be appropriate to interfere in these negotiations, given their devolved nature” and was down to the union to negotiate with the employers group the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla).

A Cosla spokesman said: “We remain in active discussions with our trade union partners.”

And a Scottish government spokesman said: “We would encourage the parties to maintain dialogue and stay at the table to reach agreement.”

The ballot will take seven weeks and will close on July 26.