More than 100,000 council workers in Scotland will vote on possible strike action in a row over pay, union leaders said today.
The trade union Unison announced it was staging a ballot on industrial action.
It comes as Unison members in England, Wales and Northern Ireland voted by 55% to take industrial action after rejecting a 2.45% pay offer.
Unison, together with the G
MB and Unite unions, represents local authority workers in Scotland.
The three unions had called for workers to receive a pay rise of either 5% or £1,000 - depending on which was greater - from April this year.
Union leaders said the employers' organisation, the local authority group Cosla, had offered workers an increase of 2.5% a year for the next three years.
But members of all three unions have rejected this, and ballots on industrial action are now planned for July.
In addition Unison is planning to lobby Cosla's offices in Edinburgh on Wednesday.
Dougie Black, the union's Scottish regional organiser, claimed: "Despite public statements from Cosla that they are still in negotiation, the employers have recently cancelled a negotiating meeting scheduled for Wednesday.
"We have decided that our negotiators, and a representative number of our low paid members, will keep the appointment nevertheless to make the point to Cosla that their offer is unacceptable.
"They will be carrying the princely sum of 46p - the total that our lowest paid members can expect their hourly rate to increase if they accepted the employers' offer."
Joe Di Paola, head of the employers at Cosla, claimed the lobby was a "publicity stunt" by Unison.
Mr Di Paola said: "We would much rather they were in the building negotiating than outside taking part in nothing more than a publicity stunt."
And he insisted: "We did not cancel any negotiating meeting, on the contrary we have been keen to get them in for talks and are trying to arrange something for next week."
He went on: "There has to be a degree of realism from the unions in their claim - councils are operating within limited resources and are acutely aware that any extra money for pay would have to come out of services."
But Stephanie Herd, chair of Union's Scottish negotiators, said: "With inflation running at 3-4% and many items such as fuel and food surging in price by 15-40% it is no wonder that members who deliver our vital services reject being locked into a below inflation deal for the next three years."
She added: "We hope that our employers will see that to deliver the improved services we all want, we need staff who are properly paid and qualified.
"Pay offers like their current one will do nothing to attract and retain these staff."
The full article contains 467 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
