Nursery nurses have been taking action since May

Nurseries will be closed in Edinburgh and the Lothians, Stirling, Inverclyde, the Highlands, Orkney and Moray as the nurses intensify their campaign for fair pay.

It follows a walk out last month by 5,000 nursery nurses after they rejected an offer by the local authority umbrella group Cosla.

Joe Di Paola, of Unison, said: "Our members are being driven into more and more industrial action by an employer that neither knows nor cares about the service they provide."

He said that nursery nurses would be on strike all week in Edinburgh and the Lothians and Inverclyde.

They will stage industrial action on Monday and Tuesday in the Highlands and on Tuesday and Wednesday in Stirling.

'Not happy'

And nursery nurses will walk out on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in Orkney and Wednesday and Thursday in Moray.

Cosla said its pay offer would guarantee a top salary of �18,000 - but union bosses claimed many of its members would end up out of pocket under the deal.

Carol Ball, of Unison's nursery nurses working party, said Cosla's offer actually amounted to 8p less than they already earned.

She added: "For the largest group of nurses - those who work to deliver school services, the 'offer' means a reduction of 8p an hour.

"Less per hour than what they would get by simply increasing their hours at the current rate. No wonder nursery nurses are not happy with it.

"It is also clear that many local authorities are not happy with it - we are detecting signs of many councils wanting to do local deals - like (Cosla president) Pat Watters' own council in South Lanarkshire."

Speaking from Greece, where he is on holiday, Mr Watters said: "This is really disappointing, we think �9.33 an hour and a salary of �18,000 is a very fair offer."