Edinburgh council workers to be balloted for industrial action in dispute over tracking of drivers
Around 100 workers at Edinburgh council are being balloted on industrial action over a tracking system their union claims has the potential to be abused.
The Unite union said the dispute centred on the use of data collected by telematics in vehicles. It said in June 2025, the city council proposed introducing 'exception reports' which record each time a vehicle is used more than an hour before or after a shift. These reports are then sent on to line managers.
The staff involved in the dispute are drivers in the council’s housing services department.
Unite said a telematics policy agreed in May 2023 was based on the system improving driving standards and ensuring safety and had protections against the technology being used to intrude on members’ privacy.
The union said: “Under the policy, managers must request telematics data from Fleet Services and have legitimate reasons for accessing the data. The council is now trying to breach its own policy through exception reports.
“Unite’s housing services members are concerned about ‘overreach’ into their privacy, and the potential abuse of the telematics system by management to target workers which will lead to disciplinary triggers if a commute takes more than an hour.”
The union said it had raised repeated concerns with the council to avoid an escalation in the dispute, but claimed management had continued to signal their intention to proceed with the exception reports.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Edinburgh council have continued down a route which is causing major concerns for our members in housing services.“The changes to the tracking system have the potential to be abused by management to target workers. That’s entirely unacceptable. Unite will back our members all the way in this fight.”
The ballot for industrial action opens on Friday November 21 and closes on January 5, 2026. And the union said if the ballot was successful, the industrial action in the new year would lead to all housing services repairs and maintenance being cancelled for Edinburgh tenants.
In a consultative ballot in August, Unite’s members across all housing services trades including electricians, joiners, heating engineers, and plumbers overwhelmingly backed strike action and action short of a strike.
Unite industrial officer Graeme Smith said: “Unite has no option but to ballot our members in Edinburgh council’s housing services because management continue to ignore our calls for dialogue.“The proposed change to the tracking system's use are designed to do one thing only and that is to further increase the surveillance on workers.
“New technology is being introduced without sufficient controls to ensure its use is fair and reasonable.”
The council’s housing convener Councillor Tim Pogson said: “We’re aware of the potential for industrial action by trade unions. We've invested in telematics in all the council’s fleet to ensure that it’s being used safely and efficiently and officers have written to Unite to explain how the data from this system is used.
“We would hope that this will avoid the need for any industrial action and would be happy to discuss any concerns further.
“We’ll be developing detailed contingency plans ahead of any potential strike action to minimise disruption to council services should it go ahead.”