Scottish Water workers strike as Lib Dems slam exec pay and storm spills

Frontline Scottish Water workers have staged the first in a series of weekend strikes.

The 48 days of planned action will run every Friday to Monday for 12 weeks, and began on Friday 10 November. They involve members of the Unison, Unite and GMB Scotland unions, who argue that Scottish Water has tied this year’s pay offer to a new grading structure, which they believe should be negotiated separately. Scottish Water’s position is that it is modernising a 21 year old pay and grading structure, and it has offered an in-year award of at least 8%.

Talks are due to resume on Wednesday 15 November. Scottish Water’s chief operating officer Peter Farrer said the company was committed to reaching an agreement and that plans had been put in place to maintain the provision of essential services during the action.

Meanwhile last week, the Scottish Liberal Democrats criticised Scottish Water for paying out almost £3m to three executives since 2020, amid ongoing sewage spill problems. The party said its manifesto for the next Scottish Parliament election will contain a new Clean Water Act which will feature:

• “Scotland’s Victorian sewage network updated;

• every sewage dump monitored and published with binding targets for their reduction;

• a blue flag system for Scotland’s rivers; and

• a complete ban on the release of sewage in protected areas such as bathing waters.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP, said: “Under the SNP, failing to tackle Scotland's sewage scandal is a multi-million-pound industry. It is utterly shameful that we have a government-owned water company where execs pocket bumper bonuses while our rivers, lochs and coastlines are destroyed. We don't even know the true scale of this destruction because only a pitiful fraction of sewage discharge points are properly monitored. Nobody should be rewarded for pumping sewage into our rivers and waterways.”