HUNDREDS of council staff are to take strike action in a dispute over pay.

Members of the GMB union at the city council voted four to one to walk out for two days next month affecting a wide range of services.

These include cleansing, refuse collection, land and environment, bereavement services and social care.

Staff are unhappy about changes to working time arrangements, including plans to convert holiday pay into annual leave costing some workers up to £1000 a year.

The first strike days are scheduled for Friday June 3 and Saturday June 4.

Glasgow Times:

Benny Rankin, full-time organiser of the GMB, said: “All the services will be affected because staff will not be street cleaning, uplifting bins, there will be no bereavement services, parks and roads will not be maintained and people who work in social care will not be available.”

The union has around 1600 members in the city council and union officers expect the majority to walk out.

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Mr Rankin said: “We want to resolve this without putting GMB members through the pain and cost of industrial action and the citizens of Glasgow through the pain but this is down to Glasgow City Council.

“The council proposed and approved the removal of enhanced payments for six public holidays which would be transferred to annual leave.”

The union boss said the majority of his members would lose around £600 a year but some could lose as much as £1000.

He added: “That probably doesn’t sound a lot to some people but the GMB members are among the lowest paid workers on the city council and £12 a week could make the difference for someone trying to put food on the table.

“Given the low wages in the council losing £600 a year can make a difference.”

Despite the ballot result, Mr Rankin said industrial action will be the last resort and GMB officials are willing to sit down with council bosses in a bid to get the dispute resolved.

He added: “We don’t want our members to lose one penny through industrial action and would rather the situation was resolved but we have a situation where the lowest paid are suffering once again.

“Members have said enough is enough and we want this to stop happening so have given us a mandate for industrial action.

“We met councillors last week when we told them it was within their power to resolve this. We met them again on Tuesday when they said they are working on it but needed a little bit more time.

“I don’t know how much more time they need because they have known since November this would happen.

“They are hoping they are going to speak to us again next week but we haven’t been given a date but if they want to resolve this we will sit down with them.”

Martin Rhodes, Executive Member for personnel, said: “The city is dealing with the worst cuts ever imposed by the Scottish Government and we recognise the impact they are having.

“We’ve been in continuous discussions with the union to explore ways we can work together to mitigate against these cuts. We’re willing to continue that dialogue and we would hope there would be no need to take industrial action.

“We have given staff a commitment to having no compulsory redundancies and our employees will continue to have some of the best terms and conditions anywhere.

“The real issue here is the chronic under-funding of the city by the Scottish Government.

“We are prepared to work with everyone to campaign for a fairer deal for Glasgow.”