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Local government pay strikes escalate as staff say... PAY UP NOW!

See the Local Govt Pay Campaign Pages

Local government branches have rejected a 'repackaged' pay offer and will now escalate their action following the hugely successful 29 August strike.

Branches are set to 'dig in' with a further all out strike day this month (Now confirmed as 20 September) and by bringing forward planned selective strikes by key groups across Scotland's councils.

CoSLA had flagged up a package to give 2% backdated to 1 April (the settlement date) with a further 1% from October 2000. This represents 2.5% on the paybill - a figure UNISON has already rejected. The claim is for 5% or £500 and a £5 minimum hourly rate.

UNISON's Scottish Local Government Forum on 1 September roundly rejected the repackaging. Jane Carolan, Leader of UNISON's negotiators said,

"Unfortunately the employers did not take notice of our clear warnings that they shouldn't bring us back to talks simply to offer the same amount. 2.5% has been rejected by our members before and is again. We have therefore been forced to escalate our action.

"We are still prepared to talk to the employers at any time, but reiterate that they must have an improved offer. UNISON is not prepared to sit back and let Scotland's local government workers receive the lowest rise in the UK public sector. We want to shield the public as much as we can, but we want to bring this matter to a head as soon as possible."

As we went to press the escalation plans were being put to national leaders. They subsequently backed the plans and the next strike day is 20 September.

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Community and Voluntary Sector chalk up another signing

Matt McLaughlin, Regional Officer and Irene Mackay Chairperson of the Scottish Pre-School Playgroup Association (SPPA) signed a recognition agreement on 8 August.

This is the latest in a series of recognition agreements in the newly-named Community and Voluntary Sector and strengthens UNISON's position in the sector as the SCVO newsletter "Third Force" said.

The SPPA has around 60 staff across Scotland and UNISON will be hoping to sign those we haven't yet approached, at the AGM and Annual Conference in mid-September.

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Proudest day in this young union's life

Strike reports by Chris Bartter and John Stevenson

The local government strike on 29 August was "the proudest day in this young union's life. We now have to maintain the initiative", West Lothian's Mike Kelly told UNISON's Local Government Forum.

And Fife Branch Secretary Linda Erskine paid tribute to the work of UNISON stewards. "They worked hard for success and deserve credit for that", she said.

Lead negotiator Jane Carolan echoed these sentiments. "What we achieved was absolutely magnificent. members responded magnificently. Many did not respond to the ballot and many voted no but still an estimated 70,000 came out in a clear indication that 2.5% was not enough."

For the first time in 11 years, Scottish Local Government workers took strike action in dispute with their employers about their last 2.5% pay offer.

Right across the country UNISON members supported the action call, disrupting services and closing down councils for the day.

Despite these things the reaction of the public was generally one of support and the press coverage too was good.

Shetland: Lerwick's largest primary had to close, as did council cash points, even though members were facing a major restructuring as well as the pay dispute.

Orkney: St Magnus' Cathedral shut its doors - surely a first - as members stood by their union.

Aberdeen: A march in Aberdeen turned Union Street into Trade Union Street as Aberdeenshire, Aberdeen City, and Moray Branch members expressed their support for the action, including a picket who had earlier been hit by a car driven at speed through her picket line.

Highland: two ferries shut down and all main council offices and libraries closed. Refuse collection was disrupted as collectors refused to cross picket lines.

Clackmannanshire: Refuse collection also shut down in "the wee county" as 90% of members took strike action, also closing schools in Scotland's smallest council.
Fife and Dundee City: Most schools shut and good support from other union members closed cleansing depots and tips.
Paisley, Inverclyde, North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire saw rallies outside council offices and all reported solid support for the action. Inverclyde say they were "delighted with the response from other unions". South Lanarkshire's Martha McAllister reported 68 out of 128 schools closed.

In Hamilton, Bubbles the Clown entertained striker's children - themselves off because of school closures.

Life wasn't always problem-free; Argyll & Bute, Falkirk, West Lothian and Edinburgh City maintained life and limb emergency cover despite provocative actions by management.

West Lothian signed up 250 new members to add to their 2,500.

Edinburgh: Cleaners at the Scottish Parliament (a council contract) formed a picket line and attracted media attention.

Hundreds of members attended rallies outside the City Chambers and at the newly refurbished Usher Hall.
Area offices were closed, refuse collections were hit as T&G members refused to cross and some schools closed. Management accept the council was paralysed.

Glasgow: The largest rally in the country was in Glasgow, where over 1500 strikers listened to Matt Smith - UNISON's Scottish Secretary - and Nancy Coull the union's vice-president and herself a striker, congratulate them for their support and predict that further action would be needed to move the employers.

In the city most council services were shut, and support from T&G crews disrupted school bus services.

East Dunbartonshire: A donation of a day's pay by a Chief Official on the picket line set the tone for the day. Here, pickets began to get bored as no one attempted to cross and offices stayed resolutely shut.

West Dunbartonshire: 95% turnout, 150 new members and excellent support from T&G and GMB.

East Renfrewshire: Barrhead Sports Centre was shut as were all day centres and libraries.

Western Isles: Only seven out of the 437 members crossed and 11 new members were recruited.

The story was the same across Scotland with over 4,000 new members signing up since the ballot.

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Kept busy with the media coverage

UNISON won the battle of the media too. Joe Di Paola - Scottish Organiser Local Government - was at the BBC so often he was asked if he wanted a staff badge!

He featured on programmes as far apart in time as Good Morning Scotland at 7.30am and Newsdrive at 4.30pm.

Matt Smith kindly spared him doing Newsline - the BBC Choice late night news programme at 10pm by doing that himself!

UK media also woke up to this dispute and Jane Carolan featured on BBC2's "Working Lunch" and both BBC2 and 1's network 6.00 news programmes.

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Who said what...

"2.5% goes nowhere towards meeting our claim or addressing low pay"

Dougie Black, UNISONScotland Local Government Executive Chair: Usher Hall rally.

"Further action will be needed to move the employers"

Nancy Coull, UNISON Vice-President and a striker herself. Glasgow Concert Hall Rally

"I'm glad it's being recognised now that so many in Scotland do rely on services, and if they rely on services they have to pay decent wages for them"

Matt Smith, UNISON Scottish Secretary. BBC TV News.

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Bullying still a major problem in healthcare

By Chris Bartter

An important survey on bullying at work reveals that 70% of members of Glasgow Health Branch either are being bullied or have witnessed it.

Conducted by UNISON's Glasgow Health Branch the survey identifies a variety of forms of bullying, especially the withholding of information, being undermined, being shouted at, publicly humiliated and the subject of belittling remarks.

Authority needed

Worryingly equal numbers of bullies are identified as co-workers and managers (44% of each). As one health worker says,

"It is about time managers and under managers were given the authority to deal with bullying".

Individuals were prepared to take action about the bullying, however. A total of 54% took some form of action to address the problem, although an enormous 80% felt that nothing happened as a result of their complaints.

Comments Karie Murphy, Branch Secretary

"No doubt the perceived lack of management clout and the risk of being labelled a troublemaker has led to the reaction amongst staff that in future they will take problems to the union or confront the bully directly, rather than going through management procedures themselves."

Workload pressures

The Branch thinks the survey has clearly identified increasing workloads and staff pressure as key factors leading to bullying behaviour Equally clearly it is not being dealt with properly.

Karie Murphy again
"We have now taken these findings to the Trust Management and got agreement to rewrite the existing anti-harassment policy, along with ACAS, and for the first time, we have established a joint panel with UNISON to hear bullying cases and try to stamp it out".

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Alliance success in warming up parliament

By Chris Bartter

A unique alliance of union, company, charity and think-tank successfully launched a radical new plan to overcome the major Scottish Fuel Poverty problem at the Scottish Parliament in June.

With the co-operation of UNISON-backed MSP's arranged by Karen Gillon MSP, the document was presented to Margaret Curran MSP, of the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee.

UNISON along with Transco, the British Gas pipeline Company, jointly sponsored the work undertaken by Energy Action Scotland, the fuel poverty charity, and the Centre for Scottish Public Policy.

The product of a series of workshops on different aspects of fuel poverty - Keeping Scotland Warm - recommended some radical new ways of addressing fuel poverty - such as the creation of local authority heating benefit accounts to target fuel subsidies to those in fuel poverty, and appointing a Healthy Homes co-ordinator.

Dave Watson, UNISON's Scottish Organiser for the Utilities said
"This kind of collaboration with other bodies is going to become more important to allow UNISON to make its proper policy impact on the Scottish Parliament. Over 39 different organisations from local authorities to private companies signed up to this document".

Keeping Scotland Warm has been sent to all local authorities, housing associations and health boards and will be submitted to the Parliament as the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee is discussing the Executive's Housing Bill.

See the full document on the UNISONScotland website at:
www.unison-scotland.org.uk/ksw

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Caley knock them out

The substantial team put together by UNISON Glasgow Caledonian University Branch shout their success in the It's a Knockout Tournament organised at the end of July in Strathclyde Park.

The team was one of 20 raising money for the British Lung Foundation in the tournament.

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Jackie applauds Orkney sponsorship

Orkney local government branch increased the union's profile in the islands in June when they sponsored a series of poetry readings by Jackie Kay as part of the St. Magnus Festival.

The readings, which included the featured performance in Papdale Primary School, Kirkwall were packed out and preceded by an introduction from Orkney Branch's publicity officer John Richards.

Alison Fraser, Branch Convenor said "There was a lot of good feedback from the audience about UNISON's involvement and Jackie herself was great.

"She continually drew attention to the sponsorship, saying how good she felt that, for the first time ever, she was being sponsored by a trade union".

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Trunk roads decision could save 2000 jobs

UNISON has welcomed a decision by Scottish Executive Minister Sarah Boyack that will protect of thousands of Scottish Roadworkers' jobs.

The Scottish Executive is forcing Councils to bid in partnership with the private sector for the right to manage and maintain Scotland's Trunk Road network.

This work is currently mostly carried out by Councils, but a number of private sector consortia are bidding to take over each of the four contract areas from April 2001.

Preliminary advice from civil servants indicated that Roads staff working for Councils would be paid off if the private sector bids were successful.

This would have meant up to 2000 redundancies, a disproportionate number in the Highlands, Argyll and North East Scotland where the Trunk Road network has the highest mileage.

Now Sarah Boyack has responded to pressure from both COSLA and UNISON, and announced that if the private sector bids are successful, staff would transfer to the private sector rather than facing redundancy. She will therefore require bids to be priced on the assumption that TUPE (Transfer Regulations) will apply.

Donald Shiach, UNISON's Regional officer for the Highlands said:
"This is great news for the workforce who provide the lifeline winter maintenance programme for Scotland's Trunk Roads.

"We are opposed to the Executive's plans to put Trunk Roads out to tender, but at least councils are now bidding on a level playing field. We are confident this announcement will help keep this vital public service under public control where it belongs."

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Police staff stalwart Lilias honoured

Lilias McNaughton, a stalwart of the Strathclyde Police and Fire Branch is presented with her honorary life membership by Adrian Dilworth, UNISON's President.

Lilias was instrumental in establishing Police Staff organisation, in the early days with NALGO, which she joined in 1982. She became convenor of police staffs in the Strathclyde Region Branch before retiring in 1995.

Raymond Brown, Strathclyde Police and Fire Branch Secretary, said
"Although she is retired, Lilias still comes into the Branch office 2 days per week to assist us. She is also active in the UNISON Retired members section, the STUC retired members and is on the Scottish Pensioners Forum Executive".

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Scottish branches win awards

By Willie Carolan C&C Committee

The City of Edinburgh branch won Best Web-site in these year's national communications awards.

And two Scottish branch magazines, Renfrewshire and South Glasgow Hospitals, won special merit awards.

Roger Bannister, chair of the National Communications Committee, said there been more entrants than ever before and even more encouragingly, more newcomers than ever.

After the prize-giving, a discussion involving John Stevenson (winner of the best web-site), Louise Wass from Derbyshire and a speaker from the Dudley Health branch followed.

Each gave their own perspective on their varied expertise and experience of communications in theory and practice. John Flynn, vice-chair of the NEC's Finance Committee, expressed his wish that every branch should have its own computer (and web-site?) even if this had to be provided from national funds. Watch this space!

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LETTERS

Thanks for Section 28 victory

I am delighted to advise branches that the Scottish Parliament agreed to repeal Section 28.

The Ethical Standards Bill will get soon become an Act of the Scottish Parliament. The part of the Act that repeals Section 28 will formally come into effect around the end of the year, but the section is now finished.

On behalf of the Scottish Lesbian and Gay Committee, I would like to thank everyone who wrote a letter, sent a email to their MSP and/or the Scottish Executive as part of the consultation process. Everyone who participated is part of this victory, so a huge thanks !

The Co-Convenors of the National Lesbian and Gay Committee, Jocelyn Watson and Rob Tipper, have asked me to convey the following statement to UNISON Scotland:

"It is with great delight that we write to you on behalf of UNISON's National Lesbian and Gay Committee to express our joy that the decision on repeal of Section 2a has now been taken in Scotland. Indeed we have no hesitation in writing on behalf of the whole union. UNISON's National Delegate Conference closed with two unanimous votes in favour of repeal.

You have led the way to ensuring that the Scottish Parliament were not swayed by the bigotry and prejudice of Brian Souter and other reactionary forces. In the rest of the UK, we take courage and strength from your victory and look forward to the day when we too can have this discriminatory legislation repealed.

When homophobia is rife, when lesbians and gay men face discrimination and harassment in their workplace, in schools, in their access to social benefits, housing and the provision of services, it is heartening to hear of the Scottish Parliament's resounding opposition to discrimination against lesbians and gay men. We hope the British Parliament will learn from Scotland that inequality and bigotry have no place in the domestic or European legislation."

Once again, thank you for your support.

Neil MacInnes

Don't forget the pensioners

I read with interest your campaign for better wages for UNISON members in the latest edition of Scotland in UNISON.

I am a retired member of UNISON and am active with the Retired Members section of the Dumfries and Galloway Branch. While campaigning for your members please give some thought to the conditions of your retired members who are stuck with increases tied to inflation.

As you will be aware we received an increase of old age pension of 75p this year. In the meantime everything else rises steeply, my rates bill rose by £85.00 and need I mention the cost of petrol!

Remember your pay increase is our rates rise! Why not tackle the government who restrict the amount of cash given to local government to pay for an ever increasing work load and your wage increases

David Trail

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We want to hear your news

Won any deals or cases for members? Any 'people' stories we could use? SiU is your paper, we want to hear your stories.

Your SiU contacts are:

John Stevenson (Editor)

0131 343 1991

comms@unison-edinburgh.org.uk

Chris Bartter

0141 332 0006,

chris.bartter@unison.org.uk

FAX PRESS RELEASES to 0141-331-1203