STRIKES affecting waste and street care workers in Clackmannanshire due to take place this week will no longer go ahead.

Waste and cleaning workers were set to take industrial action from Wednesday, August 14, until Thursday, August 22 due to an ongoing dispute over pay.

Initially, union members had rejected Cosla’s pay offer and were preparing to take action for a period of eight days this month.

Now, Cosla have put forward an improved pay offer, with members across Scotland’s largest three unions pausing their strike action to review the deal.

Unite the Union and GMB both announced cancellations to their strikes in the early afternoon on Monday, August 12, with Unison calling theirs off shortly afterward.

Kevin McIntyre, branch secretary for Unison Clackmannanshire, said: “Due to the improved pay offer from Cosla, Unison have taken the pragmatic decision to suspend this week’s planned strike action of waste and street care services, and all Clackmannanshire Council Unison members will now be offered the opportunity to vote on this new pay offer.

“While the increased offer is welcomed, it still falls quite short of the reasonable claim that we had submitted.

“In addition, the offer was not structured fairly across all grade levels and so will see lower percentage increases for all but those on the lowest salary ranges.

“The strike ballot of schools staff will continue and, should our members decide to reject the offer, a new program of strikes will likely be scheduled in the coming weeks.”

Cosla made their improved offer on Friday, putting forward an increase of at least 3.6 per cent for all local government workers.

This was made possible due to the Scottish Government providing funding which allowed a pay offer to go beyond the 3.2 per cent previously offered by Cosla.

The overall value of the offer on the table currently sits at 4.27 per cent, which the governing body insisted reflected what the trade unions were asking for.

Cllr Katie Hagmann, resources spokesperson for Cosla, added: “Having worked hard over the last week with Scottish Government to increase and guarantee additional funding, leaders are now in a position to make this improved offer to our trade unions.

“This offer reflects what trade unions have asked for and we hope that they will now be prepared to call off the strikes while they put that offer to their members.”