THE National Museums of Scotland in Edinburgh will be hit by a third successive Christmas strike as union members walk out as part of a long-running dispute.

According to the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS), its members will not be working on December 26 and 27 as it tries to persuade museum management to reverse a decision to remove weekend working allowances for staff.

This marks the third anniversary of the dispute, which will close Scotland’s most visited tourist attraction for the third Christmas in a row.

PCS has said it is keen to settle the dispute and put proposals to management last month that could have resolved it. However, it said management had so far not accepted them.

PCS Scottish secretary Lynn Henderson said: “This dispute is becoming as much a part of a Scottish Christmas as Still Game or turkey dinners. Neither management nor Scottish ministers seem willing or able to sort this out.

“We are extremely disappointed talks have yet again broken down.”

PCS said picket lines would be in place from 11.30am to 12.30pm on Saturday and from 9.30am till 10.30am the following day.

NMS said the action was likely to cause disruption to the National Museum of Scotland and the National War Museum. It advised visitors to check its website before setting out.

A spokesman said that in January 2011, NMS introduced revised contracts for new staff. These do not include weekend working allowances, which were commonplace in the many shops, businesses and other visitor attractions that operate seven days a week.

“To introduce weekend payments for these staff would create an additional cost of more than £400,000 per year, which in the current public-sector funding climate is unaffordable,” said NMS.