Staff at Scottish Water will be the next public sector workers to strike over pay when they walk out for 24 hours at midday.
An agreement equivalent to a 3% rise over 15 months was agreed in September backdated to April. While this is within the public sector guideline it is not keep up with inflation, the consumer price index was 4.5% in October (the EU average was 3.7%) down from 5.2% in September and the Retail Price Index was 4.2% for October down from 5.0%. The RPIX which excludes mortgage payments was at 4.7% for the same period.
So while the employers at Scottish Water have stuck to their government directive on pay increases it clearly is a case that public sector pay is not pushing inflation but is sadly falling behind on that score. Maybe Labour really need to redress this target figure.
So employees are continuing to be crushed by the increasing prices and by not having additional money come their annual pay reviews to even hope to catch up.
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