A total of 500 Scottish Water employees have accepted an 8% basic pay increase following ongoing strike action.
The pay deal, which was negotiated by three trade unions, was backed by 98% Unite members in a consultative ballot, with the increase due to be applied to all overtime, call out and standby rates worked since April 2023. There will also be a further reduction in the working week to 35 hours without loss of pay, to be implemented in November 2024.
It was further agreed that the new grading structure at Scottish Water would be decoupled and negotiated separately from the 2023 pay offer. The aim is to have reached an agreement on the new structure no later than March 2024.
Planned industrial action for 15 November was suspended in order to ballot members on the proposed new pay offer at the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service.
Peter Farrer, chief operating officer at Scottish Water, said: “We are delighted we can make a back-dated in-year award of 8%, payable in December, following a ballot of joint trade union members which resulted in agreement from the workforce. This has only been made possible by retaining the connection of the pay award to modernising our reward foundations which gives us the ability to go beyond the level of award permissible under the public sector pay strategy. We are fully committed to working with our unions to ensure a reviewed pay and grading structure is in place by March 2024.”
Stevie Deans, regional coordinator at Unite, added: “We have managed to secure a number of significant improvements to the working conditions of our members. An important element of this deal was Scottish Water management belatedly agreeing to decouple the pay offer from any new grading structure. This was a key demand for us, and talks will continue on this issue.”