The Aberdeen school strike continued on Friday

Staff voted for a 48-hour stoppage after the collapse of talks between Aberdeen City Council and unions.

The increasingly bitter wrangle is over equal pay, with workers claiming thousands of pounds in back pay.

Thirty of the 78 city schools and nurseries closed on Thursday and that number rose on Friday.

Aberdeen City Council thanked all of the catering and cleaning staff who turned up for work and said it hoped the "tremendous support" would continue.

Pay deal

However, the T&G union said support for the strike action so far had been considerable.

The council estimated that 400 catering staff were on strike each day, but that the number of cleaning staff on strike on Friday dropped to 250 from 400.

Council officials are to hold face-to-face briefings with catering and cleaning staff early next week to update them on the current situation.

If anyone is hiding anything it's the council - they are hiding the rest of the money still due to our union members Tommy Campbell T&G union

They say they will give them more information about the bonus and equal pay deal that is on offer.

The action has meant days off for 10,000 pupils on Thursday and 15,000 on Friday.

The staff, mainly female catering, cleaning, clerical and care workers, claim they are owed money because of equal pay legislation.

The council is proposing to give out �13.5m in retrospective pay to about 2,000 staff.

Re-opening Monday

It said it anticipated that the vast majority of schools would be open as normal on Monday morning.

The dispute could run for the next few weeks, although union officials said they were prepared to meet with council staff to try and reach a deal.

Kitchen staff are among those on strike in the city

Councillor Neil Fletcher - who is overseeing the equal pay process - has accused the T&G of making unrealistic demands and not telling strikers the full facts of the offer.

However, T&G regional spokesman Tommy Campbell said: "The T&G is not hiding any information from our members.

"They have been fully briefed on the offer by the council and in fact the council has also issued the details in the post to our members.

"If anyone is hiding anything it's the council - they are hiding the rest of the money still due to our union members."

Officials said there was absolutely no truth in rumours that private contractors would be brought in to carry out cleaning, and that staff would be working over the weekend to clean schools.