Congress celebrates Edinburgh victory against privatisation
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| John Stevenson |
Congress applauded the victory by
trade unions and community groups in Edinburgh,
in seeing off the threat of the privatisation of
a huge tranche of council services and pledged support
to unions and communities to fight privatisation
in the future.
UNISON’s John Stevenson, whose
Branch led the fight in Edinburgh under the “Our
City’s not for Sale” campaign told delegates
that it was great to be there to celebrate the victory
with Congress.
“It’s even better following
the victory in Aberdeen a few weeks ago,”
he said, adding that it was hard to overestimate
the importance of seeing off the Edinburgh privatization
plans.
“The sheer scale of what was
planned would have seen Edinburgh’s infrastructure
sold off in contracts running through not just this
election but the next one too, condemning future
councillors to precious little influence over services
no matter who was elected,” said John. “No-one
tried to hide the fact that it was a Trojan Horse
for privatisations across Scottish local government.”
He warned that cuts in Local Government
mean that it is not just services that are hit -
but the whole economy that depends on them - public
and private. He added that many of the claims made
by the tendering companies could not be backed up
and none had made real savings. And he condemned
the council for throwing millions at the private
bid process and only a fraction of that on the in-house
options.
John paid tribute to the skills of
UNISON’s full time officers whose role in
the success could not be underestimated.
“Their research, analysis and
lobbying, went alongside basic organising, campaigning
and reaching out and engaging communities. They
were all required. No one part of it could have
delivered by itself. Thanks to our activists, our
fellow unions and to the communities who rose up
to back us, we saw this threat off.”
“It is now important to review
what worked and what didn’t and build on that
for the future. So if Councils are daft enough to
try again - we’ll be ready for them,”
warned John.
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