Tens of thousands of low paid council workers across Scotland are facing three years of cuts in wages following their employer’s (CoSLA) pay offer.
With inflation rates for the year to March 2010 at 3.4% and 4.4% (depending on which figure is used) CoSLA’s offer of 1% for 2010, 0% for 2011 and 0.5% for 2012 represents year-on-year pay cuts for more than 150,000 workers in Scotland.
Jim McFarlane, the Dundee West Scottish Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (STUSC) candidate and himself a council worker and a Unison trade union activist said: “An unholy alliance of politicians from all the main parties have the gall to offer hard-pressed and often low paid staff the insult of three years of cuts in wages.
“This is yet another example of the big business parties seeking to make ordinary workers pay for an economic crisis we did nothing to create.”