Further strike action is set to hit Scottish Water as the dispute over pay at the public body escalates.
Emergency repairs and water quality checks will not be carried out during the action. Problems reported with the water supply, sewage or drainage won’t be dealt with until the strike is over.
The 48-hour strike action which started on Tuesday 22nd will continue today Wednesday 23rd April involving Unite’s 500-strong membership at offices and wastewater treatment works across the whole of Scotland with the union warning more industrial action is ‘likely’. GMB Scotland and UNISON members at Scottish Water will also strike as a rolling programme of industrial action threatens emergency repairs, testing and maintenance.
The unions have criticised Scottish Water executives for using talks through the conciliation service Acas as a device to ‘water down’ a pay offer made to the workforce, and to fall back on an inferior offer made last year. The ‘watered down’ offer amounts to a basic pay rise of 3.4 per cent or £1,050 for those on the lowest grades over a nine-month period.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham, said:
“Unite members at Scottish Water refuse to accept the double standards of eye-watering pay for executives, while workers have to make do with a rehashed pay offer that fails to deliver a decent pay increase.
“Unite stands with our members in their fight for better jobs, pay and conditions at Scottish Water and we will not back down.”
UNISON represents more than 1,000 workers at Scottish Water, where it is the largest union.
UNISON Scottish Water branch secretary Tricia McArthur said:
“Scottish Water workers are simply asking to be paid fairly for the essential services upon which everyone in Scotland relies.
“Things are meant to be different in a publicly owned service like this. But senior managers are behaving no differently to those running private water companies south of the border.”
Workers voted against an offer of 3.4% or £1400 covering the last nine months as the company changes the date for annual rises to take effect from July to April.
Scottish Water’s executive team were awarded £329,000 in bonuses and benefits in 2023/24. The three key executives of Scottish Water, Alex Plant, Peter Farrer and Alan Scott, amassed £842,000 in remuneration packages with the outgoing chief executive Douglas Millican also collecting £55,000 before his exit in May 2023.
Claire Greer, GMB Scotland organiser, said the strikes are going ahead after the publicly-owned utility failed to improve a pay offer overwhelmingly rejected by workers.
She said:
“The company has made these negotiations painfully complicated for no good reason.
“A revised offer received last week was shorter but clearly no better than the one already rejected and, for some workers, worse.
“Our priority remains reaching a resolution to this dispute but weeks of talks have managed to leave us behind where we started.
“The strikes will go on and action will escalate until our members are made a fair and acceptable pay offer.”