MUSEUM staff in Edinburgh stood their ground yesterday as they entered their second day of strike action, forcing two national museums to close.

Over 100 members of Civil Service union PCS walked out on Thursday after talks aimed at getting museum management to reverse a decision to remove weekend working allowances broke down.

PCS Scottish secretary Lynn Henderson said: “It was only a few weeks ago that the National Museum Scotland topped the poll as the most visited tourist attraction in Scotland, but it has come bottom of the league this week for poor industrial relations.”

Scottish Greens MSP Alison Johnstone also spoke out in support of the PCS strikers, calling bosses’ action “disappointing.”

A spokeswoman for National Museums Scotland claimed the organisation “had to make a wide range of changes in order to manage reduced budgets.”