Strike action in Scotland’s local authorities has been averted as two more unions announced members have accepted a two-year pay offer.
Unite the union announced on Thursday that 77% of its members backed the deal offered by local authority body Cosla, while GMB said 66% voted in favour.
The deal will see a 4% increase in pay this year and 3.5% next year, with both unions joining Unison – which accepted the proposal earlier this week – in backing it.
With union members backing the proposal, the chance of strike action among non-teaching council staff has been averted this year.
Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, said: “The deal negotiated by Unite will boost pay packets and provide stability for our members.
“Unite is once again delivering better jobs, pay and conditions for our Scottish council members.”
Keir Greenaway, the GMB union’s senior organiser for public services, said the offer “does not do enough” for the lowest paid staff despite the vote to back it.
“We argued and will continue to argue for pay offers to be a flat increase to the hourly rate of every council worker,” he said.
“A percentage increase means the highest-paid council staff will receive thousands of pounds more each year while frontline workers get pennies more each hour.
“This offer does not do enough for them and it does not do enough to reach a minimum wage of £15 an hour which ministers continue to insist is their ambition.”
A spokeswoman for Cosla said: “I’m pleased that GMB and Unite members, alongside Unison, have voted to accept the strong two-year pay offer from Cosla.
“This means a two-year pay settlement has been agreed – which will bring a welcome period of stability and certainty about pay for our workforce.
“In agreeing this pay settlement, which is worth 4% in year one, effective from April 1 2025, and a further 3.5% increase in year two from April 1 2026, council leaders recognise the value our employees in Scotland’s councils deliver every day.
“Councils are now able to take forward work to get the pay increase of 7.64% over the two-year period into the pockets of our workforce.
“While the agreement will have come too late for most councils’ July pay runs we know that payroll teams locally will be working hard to implement the uplift and any backpay due in the next months.”
