Last Wednesday August 20th, 150,000 Scottish public sector workers from UNISON, UNITE and the GMB took unified action against a below-inflation pay offer of 2.5%. They were joined by PCS workers employed by the Scottish Parliament, who the SNP have also been trying to fob off with a real pay cut. Bins remained uncollected, council offices stayed closed, Caledonian MacBrayne ferries did not run. A thousand schools were closed across Scotland and, in some cases, teachers refused to cross picket lines.

An extended strike picket was organised outside the Edinburgh City Chambers which, for obvious reasons, employs many council employees. It was a wet day and the location on the Royal Mile (Edinburgh's main street) was slightly ill-thought out, as it was full of tourists here for the Edinburgh Festivals. Despite the torrential weather conditions, over twenty striking workers from the UNISON and UNITE unions attended the picket. Many workers are in a militant mood after they have been swindled by the bosses over the implementation of single status pay and now over below-inflation pay rises. There is also a lot of anger towards the UNISON leadership who, many members feel, have not fought for their interests in disputes over single status and have constantly switched positions over whether or not members would co-operate with its implementation. One UNISON member said that he thought half his co-workers would be going into work just because they were so disillusioned with the union leadership.

'Socialist Appeal' supporters from Edinburgh attended the picket and spoke to many of the workers about their thoughts on the strike and the union leaderships. There was a lot of anger and many calling for more strikes and for the next to be longer than one day. We sold the 'Socialist Appeal' and several engaging political discussions were had. Despite the weather, the striking workers were out to show that they will not have poverty pay rises inflicted upon them by either the council bosses or union leaders.

Generally the picture is that there is a lot of disatisfaction with the leadership, as this was only a one day strike and that they also had a strike in England at different times etc. On the otherhand the strike was quite successful in itself in that it got all three unions out and was quite well supported. The main criticism strikers had is that the action was very limited and would not have a serious effect on services. There were calls by some pickets for extended action in services such as the bin collections so that they may force the employers into a serious pay offer.