New offer made to cleansing staff in bid to halt strikes

A new offer has been made to Scottish council cleansing staff in a bid to halt ongoing strike action.

A walkout in Edinburgh which saw rubbish litter the streets during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is due to end on Wednesday, while staff in authorities across Scotland took action over the weekend with a further stretch planned for next week.

The GMB, Unison and Unite unions were in talks with local authority body Cosla on Sunday, but it is understood an offer has now been made to halt the actions.

The details of the offer have not yet been made public, with union leaders expected to go discuss the offer before putting it to members for approval.

Cosla resources spokeswoman Katie Hagmann refused to confirm the offer had been made, but said: “We remain in intense active discussions with our trade union colleagues.”

Despite the first round of strike action coming to an end in Edinburgh this week, many residents will not have their full backlog of waste collected before the next round of industrial action begins.

For households which have kerbside pickups in Scotland’s capital, landfill waste and dry recycling waste are collected on alternating weeks.

With the next strike due to begin on September 6, the city council confirmed only one type of rubbish would be picked up per household.

Around 140,000 households in the city receive kerbside recycling.

Health Secretary Humza Yousaf spoke about the impact of the bin strikes during a visit to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh on Monday, saying he hoped to see a resolution “sooner rather than later”.

He said: “Public Health Scotland have made the point about the public health impacts of the bin strikes.

“Nobody wants to see that, particularly when we’re showcasing cities like Edinburgh during the Fringe festival and we have tourists from across the world coming.”