UNISON is urging members to turn out in force on 29 October to lobby councillors to keep their no compulsory redundancy pledge.
And in a show of unity, our colleagues in the Glasgow City Branch will be lobbying their council on the same day.
The Council’s Capital Coalition (Labour/SNP) made 53 pledges when it was elected in 2012. In the latest update to Pledge 26, the Council said: “We have a policy of no compulsory redundancies. There have not been any since we made the pledge.
“All efforts have been made to redeploy surplus staff. We are monitoring the policy on a case by case basis, to make sure it is still business and cost effective.”
The officials have a report going to the Finance and Resource committee on 29 October requesting that the councillors drop this pledge and leave it to the officials to decide how many staff are made compulsory redundant.
We need to ensure the Councillors keep their pledge, come along to the lobby below and show your support.
Now is the time to stand up and realise it is your job that is at threat and your service to be cut.
Transformational Change wants to achieve a ‘leaner and more agile council’; it is more likely to make it ‘thinner and fragile’.
Staff will be thinner on the ground and the council and service provision will become more fragile.
There is an alternative to cuts
All major economists are now agreed that the cuts are a political choice not an economic necessity. They are an ideological attack on the public sector.
The government’s austerity programme will result in a further £2billion of cuts to Scotland’s public services.
UNISON has published a report urging Scottish public bodies to mitigate the effects of austerity through measures like contract buyouts and/or refinancing of expensive PPP/PFI projects; refinancing of debt, return of powers over non domestic rates, a reformed council tax, an end to the council tax freeze and the ability to levy local taxation.
See full details at www.unison-scotland.org.uk/publicworks
Our City’s still not for sale
The Council has rejected proposals to outsource 1,500 Facilities Management staff to a private company. UNISON argued and lobbied strongly to reject these proposals and common sense won in the end.
We still need to be vigilant for further smaller scale privatisations of your jobs and services.
Vera email
You will have received an email from the Council’s chief executive, Andrew Kerr, outlining the outlining the existing VERA terms.
In that email, he says ‘You will also be aware that reluctantly, we are discussing the possibility of compulsory redundancies and related payments with trade union representatives’
We wish to clarify that UNISON has made it clear that we will not negotiate on compulsory redundancy.
Our position remains that we have an AGM mandate that will instigate industrial action if there is a move to make anyone compulsory redundant.