THOUSANDS of workers represented by Britain’s biggest three trade unions are fighting for better pay at Scottish Water as they began a two-day strike today.
The action came after workers at the Scottish government-owned company “overwhelmingly rejected” a pay offer worth 3.4 per cent or £1,400 — whichever was higher — after months of negotiations, and talks at conciliation service Acas, which GMB Scotland organiser Claire Greer argues “only made it worse.”
Ms Greer 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.”
Unison Scottish Water branch secretary Tricia McArthur added: “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.”
That behaviour included executives raking-in £329,000 in bonuses and benefits in 2023/24, infuriating workers and Unite general secretary Sharon Graham.
She 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.”
Unite industrial officer Sam Ritchie added: “Strike action at Scottish Water will continue for as long as it takes to resolve this issue.
“The action being taken is a direct result of Scottish Water’s arrogance in ignoring our members legitimate demands for a decent pay increase.
“Scottish Water have it within their gift to resolve this dispute and it has miserably failed to do so.”
Calling their pay offer “progressive," a Scottish Water spokesman said: “We are very disappointed that we have still not been able to reach an agreement with the trade unions.”
