Nursery nurses step up strikes

Published on Sunday 5 October 2003 01:00

NURSERY nurses are to launch a fresh wave of strikes across Scotland starting tomorrow, union chiefs announced yesterday.

Nurseries will be closed in Edinburgh and the Lothians, Stirling, Inverclyde, the Highlands, Orkney and Moray as the nurses intensify their campaign for fair pay.

It follows a walk-out last month by 5,000 nursery nurses after they rejected an offer by the local authority umbrella group Cosla.

Joe Di Paola, of Unison, said: "Our members are being driven into more and more industrial action by an employer that neither knows nor cares about the service they provide."

He said nursery nurses would be on strike all week from tomorrow in Edinburgh and the Lothians and Inverclyde. They will stage industrial action tomorrow and on Tuesday in the Highlands, and on Tuesday and Wednesday in Stirling.

Nursery nurses will also walk out on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in Orkney, and on Wednesday and Thursday in Moray.

Cosla said its pay offer would guarantee a top salary of 18,000 - but Unison bosses claimed many of its members would end up out of pocket under the deal.

Carol Ball, of the union’s nursery nurses working party, said Cosla’s offer actually amounted to 8p an hour less than they already earned.

Cosla president Pat Watters said: "This is really disappointing. We think 9.33 an hour and a salary of 18,000 is a very fair offer."