UP to 100 strikers and supporters are expected to hold a demonstration outside Scottish Borders Council headquarters on Thursday.

A dispute between workers in the roads department and bosses at the local authority led to a vote being taken in June.

A total of 86.4 percent of the Unite union members voted to take strike action over changes to their terms and conditions.

The first day of industrial action will take place on Thursday.

A spokesman for Unite told us: "Between 60 and 100 strikers and supporters are expected to assemble.

"The workers in the roads department have been treated with contempt and the latest efforts by the council to draft in contracted workers to cover workers taking action is disgraceful.

“Instead of positively engaging with the workers and Unite, the council seem intent on escalating the dispute.

"Unite will explore every legal avenue to challenge this aggressive action.

“Unite also believes that there is a strong legal case that workers are being offered unlawful financial inducements to break the existing collective bargaining agreements.”

The reasoning behind the dispute has been refuted by the local authority chief executive Tracey Logan.

She told us: "Some of the allegations made by Unite about the planned strike by a small number of roads department staff on August 29 are absolutely unfounded and cannot be left unchallenged.

“The council has not changed terms and conditions for this staff group, nor have we failed to consult the trade unions or the staff affected. 

“In fact, we discovered some months ago that a small number of staff in this section had been claiming a higher rate of overtime than they were entitled to under the agreed terms and conditions. 

“They were also claiming for time to travel to work when working weekend overtime, which again is not in line with the agreement in place.

“Given that Unite agreed to these terms and conditions, I am surprised and disappointed that they now want some of their members to be given more favourable pay rates than others, and for this small group be able to claim additional allowances that their other members cannot."

The strike is set to coincide with a meeting of Scottish Borders Council on Thursday morning between 8.30am and 9.30am.