The ten picketing union members got a good response to their sign reading “toot for support,” as many drivers sounded their horns. Earlier, 120 had marched through the town.

Some 4,500 members of the Unison public sector union are holding a series of rolling strikes over six weeks covering different parts of Scotland. Strikes have so far taken place May 20-22, May 28-29, and June 3-4. The nurses are also refusing all additional duties and overtime as they fight for a raise of around £4,000 per year, a 35-hour workweek, and a pay review.

The unionists explained that there has been no such review for 15 years, despite considerable added duties and responsibilities. “We’re expected to do the same as teachers, but they receive twice our pay,” said Elspeth Hill, a nurse at a rally outside Edinburgh City Chambers May 29. Hill was on her fourth strike day.

At the same rally Barbara Foubister, chair of the Edinburgh City Unison branch (local), said, “We want to hold on to full-time status as well as get regrading.” Nursery workers are afraid they will be forced into part-time status so bosses can avoid paying them during holidays. They would lose full-time holiday and pension entitlement if that happened.

Caroline Milne, also from Edinburgh said, “I’ve been a nursery nurse for 15 years now and in that time the role has changed dramatically, but the pay is just the same.”

These nurses are currently paid £10,000 per year as new hires. That rises to £13,800 after eight years or more. Some 50 percent of them work up to 10 hours of unpaid overtime per week, while half are on temporary or fixed-term contracts.

The nurses made their initial claim 18 months ago to the employers, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA).

The bosses had offered a job evaluation process, said Foubister, but “they have asked the unions to put back the start date till 2004. It is simply another attempt to fob off low-paid nursery nurses who have already been waiting nearly 15 years. Well, we can’t wait any longer.”

Talks aimed at solving the dispute held on June 3 ended in stalemate as the bosses put forward substantially the same offer that was rejected in April by the nurses. COSLA officials have played on the inconvenience caused to parents by the strikes. “They hold a gun to our heads,” a nurse in North Lanarkshire with 11 years experience told Militant reporters, but “most of the parents support us.”

Of the 64 percent of union members who voted, nine out of ten were in favor of striking. At Bathgate and Edinburgh, nurses were adamant they wanted a result. Hill said, “This is the biggest strike we’ve ever had. We’ve had enough, we’ll fight till this is sorted out.”  
 
 
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