First Minister John Swinney said the Scottish Government has to “live in the reality of the resources we’ve got available to us” as he declined to commit to making more money available to avert the impending strikes by waste and recycling workers across Scotland.
Mr Swinney was speaking to reporters in Dunfermline the day after the Unite and GMB unions announced they had joined the union Unison in rejecting the latest pay offer from Cosla for council workers.
All three unions have warned that unless an acceptable pay offer is forthcoming, their members will take industrial action which, they said, would see the country face a “stinking summer” with “mountains of rubbish” on the streets.
Strike action two years ago saw rubbish pile up in Edinburgh as waste workers took action during the busy, summer festival period.
Asked about the prospect of strikes, the First Minister said: “This is fundamentally a negotiation between local authorities and their trade union counterparts, and it’s important that I encourage those negotiations to come to a positive resolution.
“Nobody wants to see strike action taking its course – I certainly don’t want to see that – and I would encourage both local authorities, and trade unions, to come together the resolve these issues and to avoid industrial action by resolving the pay claim.”
However, when asked whether the Scottish government would would make more money available to avert a walk-out, Mr Swinney said there was “huge pressure on the public finances”.
“The Government is under that enormous financial pressure,” he said.
“I recognise that to be a challenge to other public bodies as well, which is why I made such a call during the election campaign for the immediate end to austerity, and to the injection of resources into our public finances and public services.”
He added: “The Government has got enormous constraints in which it’s operating in relation to public finances. I have to live in the reality of the resources we’ve got available to us.
“We face enormous pressure, we’ve (communicated) that to Parliament for some considerable time and we simply have to address the fact that the public finances are under that significant pressure.”
On Monday, the Unite and GMB unions called on Cosla and the Scottish Government to come forward with an improved pay deal, after joining Unison in rejecting the latest offer of a 3.2% uplift.
