Schools close as workers walk out

Strike action hits council services

By Neil Evans political reporter

Published:

NORTH-EAST council services were in chaos today as workers took to the picket lines.

Dozens of schools have been forced to close and bin collections and street cleaning scrapped.

Members of three unions representing council workers – the GMB, Unison and Unite T&G – are among about 200,000 people from across Scotland protesting at a pay deal.

Council bosses in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and Moray only announced the full extent of how strike action would affect them yesterday.

And some schools had still not confirmed they were closing until today.

A total of 70 schools across the area are now shut, with others offering a limited service.

Gordon McIntosh, Aberdeen City Council’s director for neighbourhood services in the south of the city, defended the late announcements of which schools would remain open. He said: “It is our responsibility to keep as many facilities open as possible.

If we had made an announcement last week, it would have been to close.

“We did warn people last week that there was the possibility of closures.

“There will be a strike, it will be noticeable, but we have an agreement with unions that there will be some exemptions so major services will still be running.

“We have carried out a risk assessment. Staff have been asked whether they will be coming in. But they are still entitled to strike and we carried out a risk assessment again this morning .”

Although teachers are not striking, support staff such as janitors and cleaners are, which means many schools have had to close their doors.

Libraries, museums, art galleries and sports centres are all closed today.

Public buildings, including the Town House and St Nicholas House are closed to the public, but open to staff who cross picket lines.

People due to have rubbish collected will have to wait until next Wednesday.

In Dyce, there is a fortnightly bin collection, so rubbish will be picked up next week instead.

Members of the GMB union had been on strike since 10pm last night and the other two unions, Unison and Unite, since midnight.

The stoppage has meant all schools shutting in Dundee and only emergency social work and other key services running in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Unions said they had given adequate notice for councils to take decisions on what was going to be closed.

But Aberdeenshire Council’s director of education Bruce Robertson said: “This was a nationally set date, and Central Belt schools started back last week.

“We had advance warning of the date, but were only able to carry out any sort of risk assessment when staff returned this week.

“It is a miracle that we managed to get the information as quickly as we did.

“I don’t accept that we should have announced blanket closures last week, it was our responsibility to ensure as many children got and education today.

“There are 28,000 children in school, if there had blanket closures then it would have affected 38,000.”

Portlethen and Meldrum academies were open as their staff are private contractors, not council staff.

Today a group of around seven protesters picketed outside Harlaw Academy.

Harlaw janitor Albert Stuart, 46, said: “People expect a decent wage and this is going to be our only chance for getting it.

“A lot of parents work for the council as well, so they must be feeling the credit crunch presumably we’ll be getting backing from most of the people in the city anyway.”

Ferryhill primary janitor Pat Manathan, 54, said: “Parents expect us to give them a good service. How can we be expected to do that without a decent wage?”

Woodside primary janitor Michael Kinnaird, said: “The government feels it can get away with anything now and is using the financial crisis as an excuse.”

Click here for a list of schools and services affected by the strike

nevans@ajl.co.uk

nevans@ajl.co.uk