Low pay offer leads to Scots strike threat
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• The Scottish Transport & General Workers Union is warning that the 3% pay rise offered by employers in Scottish Joint Industrial Council talks could lead to strikes this summer: last year the employers offered 3.5%.
Scottish regional industrial organiser Danny Sharpe has put this year's offer to his members, but says: "I have heard a number say they are not content with 3%. Many members as well as ourselves are seeking /5-an-hour wages for 38-tonne HGV drivers. This rise will not achieve that. We may be going to see a series of ballots for industrial action soon."
Sharpe adds that at one stage the SJIC did agree to offer 15 an hour—but only combined with a "reduction in overtime premium payments".
"Over the past couple of years the employers have come closer to the wire over pay," he says. "If this continues we will have to increase demands for change to the entire wage structure of HGV drivers in Scotland.'