Last minute talks held to avoid strike and rubbish piling up in streets of West Lothian

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Council bosses are set to meet union representatives in a last minute bid to stop strikes that could leave rubbish piling up around West Lothian.Waste workers walked out on Thursday in Edinburgh in protest at a 3.5 per cent pay rise offer unions blasted as “derisory” and “pathetic”, with the strike scheduled to last until August 30.A meeting is being held today (Tuesday) with Cosla and Unite and the GMB to stop the spread of the industrial action to other local authorities, including West Lothian.In the capital rubbish is piling up, with city centre streets covered in litter, bins overflowing in tourist hotspots and black bags rapidly piling up outside people’s homes.Last week council umbrella body Cosla offered a 5 per cent pay deal to workers, a move First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said on Monday she hoped would resolve the dispute.“Nobody wants to see the kind of disruption and impact of strikes that many people are witnessing in Edinburgh right now,” she said.Cosla is set to meet the unions on Tuesday, but the unions have warned there was “insignificant detail” in the proposals so far and said the strikes would continue as planned.Alison Maclean, industrial officer at Unite, said: “Our members have taken the brave stance of taking strike action to get the pay rise they deserve and we are determined to ensure that this happens.”If the dispute is not solved, the scenes which have met festival-goers in the capital could be replicated across Scotland, with Edinburgh scheduled as the first in a series of strikes north of the border.Ms Maclean said the walk-outs would “continue as planned”, and added: “There remains insignificant detail on the 5% pay offer, and what this in reality means for the lowest paid workers.“At this