Trade unions are planning to protest at Glasgow City Council later this month, over plans to cut 3,000 jobs over the next two years.

The council, which is facing budget savings of £103m by 2017/18, said the job reductions would come from people naturally leaving the council rather than staff facing compulsory redundancy or early retirement.

However, GMB Scotland said the cuts would harm the health of council workers, and called on the council to use its reserves or borrowing powers to fill the funding gap.

Benny Rankin, GMB Scotland regional officer, said: ‘Morale within Glasgow City Council employees has hit rock bottom particularly within the cleansing service. Sickness levels due to stress is the highest recorded with more and more cases of musculoskeletal pain arising due to long working days and the demands on employees by management to continue to provide the same service levels as that which would be expected from a full contingent of workforce.

He added; ‘Glasgow City Council workers and the services they run are literally on their knees now. Further cuts on these services will make it for the workers’ jobs not worth having as they are extremely detrimental to their health and well-being. For the people of Glasgow the services will not be fit for purpose and which will eventually be broken beyond repair.’

The council’s city treasurer, cllr Paul Rooney said: ‘Glasgow has been hit with a disproportionate share of the Scottish cuts over the last seven years and I welcome the unions’ call to oppose further cuts to Glasgow.

‘The proposal to borrow to avoid savings would not be legal, but we want to work with our colleagues in the union movement to balance the budget while protecting services and jobs.’

Members of GMB Scotland, Unite, Unison, Ucatt and EIS will lobby the council at its next full meeting on 29 October.