WORKERS in Fife Council's waste services are set to take part in eight days' of strike action next month.

Unite and the GMB Union has announced that more local authority workers will now be involved in industrial action as part of the nationwide pay dispute.

The unions confirmed earlier this week that the current five per cent pay offer from COSLA had been rejected.

Talks involving the trade unions with the Deputy First Minister in Edinburgh took place last night (Wednesday) and despite being ‘constructive’, there was no breakthrough and no new offer has been made.

Some Scottish councils already have members in waste strikers taking part in strike action and Fife is one of five local authorities to join this second phase of strike action from September 6 to 13.

Councils in Angus, Dundee, East Renfrewshire, Glasgow, Inverclyde, North Lanarkshire, and South Lanarkshire will also see action taken in schools and early years services on September 6, 7, 8 and 9.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Unite’s members across local government are taking strike action because the politicians have failed them miserably.

"We now plan to spread this action across 20 councils in education and waste services. For five months COSLA and the Scottish Government have dithered and bickered with each other while our members have increasingly faced a cost of living crisis. We will fully support them in their fight for better jobs, pay and conditions.”

Representatives of the joint trade unions in local government are set to meet the Deputy First Minister and COSLA leadership in the coming days when they say they will again urge the need for a pay offer to combat the spiralling cost of living crisis.

GMB Scotland Senior Organiser for Public Services Keir Greenaway added: "Aspirational proposals from political leaders won’t suspend these strikes and they won’t put a penny more in workers pockets to confront this rapidly deteriorating cost-of living crisis.

“GMB members are clear that they are not prepared to accept working poverty as an inevitability and their strike actions are a direct response to the failure of political leaders to realise this.

“Tomorrow this crisis will reach new depths when disastrous rises are announced for the autumn energy price cap – our members who are among the lowest paid key workers need better value to help them confront this.

“This is the first time that government and COSLA leaders will be in the room together with unions, and it is a chance for them to give a clear commitment that when council leaders next meet, they will finally table an offer that’s worthy of our members consultation.”