College strikes will go ahead after a union criticised a lack of intervention from the Scottish government.
UnisonScotland, which represents college support staff, wrote to Scottish higher and further education minister Graeme Dey to express disappointment at the lack of intervention in resolving the pay dispute.
The letter was sent the day before Unison’s national day of strike action on Thursday which will see more than 2,000 workers across Scotland’s colleges walk out in a dispute over pay, terms and conditions.
It will be followed by rolling strikes from 11-26 September across the country.
Staff were balloted in April over colleges’ failure to agree on pay and the national harmonisation of terms and conditions, Unison said.
Unison wrote to Mr Dey in response to a letter in which he ruled out any Scottish government funding to resolve the dispute, and also failed to rule out compulsory redundancies.
John Mooney, Unison Scotland’s head of further education, said: “This just shows how completely out of touch the minister is.
“Rather than dealing with the critical issue of sorting out a long-overdue pay deal for our hardworking further education staff, he completely refuses to intervene to protect jobs and avert strike action.
