UNION bosses have warned Glasgow City Council to expect strikes over "unfair and unacceptable" pay offers.

GMB representatives said industrial action affecting local services across the country is likely unless the Scottish Government and COSLA improve a pay offer for local government staff.

The union is currently running a consultative ballot over the 2018/19 local government pay offer with a clear recommendation to reject.

It represents 30,000 members employed across all thirty-two local authorities.

GMB Scotland Organiser Rhea Wolfson said: “We cannot and will not recommend an offer that increases the pay of senior managers by £1600 a year while front-line staff in services like care, cleaning and refuse receive as little as £250 to £600.

"It would take a local school cleaner over 180 working hours to earn what that Chief Executive will get as a pay rise on top of their six figure packages - that is blatantly unfair and totally unacceptable."

As it stands, the offer put forward to local government trade unions by leaders at the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) proposes:

•A 3 per cent pay increase for all employees earning up to £36,500.

•A 2 per cent pay increase for employees earning £36,501- £80,000.

•A flat rate increase of £1600 to employees earning more than £80,000.

This would mean the Chief Executive of Glasgow City Council, Annemarie O’Donnell, who received a total remuneration package of over £214,000 last year, would get a pay increase worth around eight times more than a local full-time cleaner.

Ms Wholfson added: "We have made this clear to both COSLA and Derek Mackay and called on them to do more for the lowest paid across local government, who have struggled at the coal face of austerity cuts for a decade.

"Council leaders should now be ramping up political pressure to ensure the pay gap between the highest and lowest earners in our local authorities is reigned in and that staff delivering vital services day in and day out are properly valued.

"As it stands the current offer doesn’t do either and if left unchecked by COSLA and the Scottish Government our members will strongly reject it, meaning industrial action across local services will be likely.”

GMB’s consultative ballot runs until Friday, June 15.