Nicola Sturgeon is having something of a summer of discontent. It started almost promisingly in July, when the Scottish Government managed to buy off ScotRail drivers with a five per cent pay bump. That brought to an end weeks of travel disruption caused by Aslef members refusing to work overtime on the newly-nationalised rail company. A temporary timetable instituted in response saw 700 services culled from Scotland’s rail network. No sooner was the ink dry on that deal than local government workers rejected a two per cent pay offer and voted to strike. Now 13,000 nursery staff, school janitors, dinner ladies and teaching assistants will walk out for 72 hours next month. In the NHS, nurses and midwives are being balloted on industrial action in September while a BMA survey showed almost eight in ten Scottish doctors prepared to down stethoscopes over pay. To bring things full circle, the RMT is balloting ScotRail conductors and ticket collectors after they knocked back an offer of an extra five per cent plus £300.
The SNP’s response has alternated between what Malcolm Tucker liked to call ‘Nomfup’ and blaming Labour, which runs the council
But the most visible, and odorous, sign of industrial strife in Scotland this summer are the bin strikes.
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