Labour slash council services in Glasgow as trade unions demand a No Cuts budget

Over 150 trade unionists and anti-cuts campaigners protested at Glasgow City Council’s budget setting meeting on 19th February. The protest was backed by all the local authority trade unions, Unison, Unite, GMB and the EIS, and demanded that the council set a no cuts budget.

The Labour councillors voted through £29 million worth of cuts. The cuts include £2.5 million cuts from addiction, disability and homeless budgets. There were savage attacks on mental health services, housing support to older people, the ending of social work community development, the closure of two day centres for learning disability and an increase in the cost of school meals.This is on top of over £200M in cuts in the last five years and 4,000 job losses.

Incredibly council leader Gordan Matheson claimed in the press that the quality of council services would not be affected. 

The opposition SNP group proposed an alternative budget that called for the use of reserves to hold off on £4.6 million of these cuts.

They claimed the rest of the cuts had already been agreed by the council’s executive and could not be changed. This hasn’t stopped the SNP claiming they advocated a “No Cuts” budget in Glasgow.

But the SNP have supported much of Labour’s cuts already. For example, Labour recently put forward an £800,000 cut to the Glasgow Association of Mental Health. The SNP’s response was to argue for a £600,000 cut for GAMH – a 30% cut rather than the 40% called for by Labour.

The SNP group on Glasgow council have put forward alternative cuts budgets each year since 2012. Nevertheless, the SNP’s actions today are an indication of the pressure that is building and the impact of the case put forward by the trade unions, Socialist Party Scotland and the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition that No Cuts budgets should be demanded from elected politicians.

UNISON Branch Secretary, Brian Smith who spoke at the lobby said; “The trade unions suggested using some of the council’s reserves and borrowing powers to meet the £29m “gap” for 2015/16. This would allow the time and space to build a mass campaign of elected members, trade unions, user groups and local communities with the objective of winning more money from national government, especially in light of the £400M Scottish Government underspend. Glasgow’s politicians have a choice – make the cuts or do not and they have chosen to make the cuts”.

The rally also heard from service users groups and speakers from the EIS and Unite trade unions. Trade Union and Socialist Coalition banners were prominently displayed with TUSC standing four candidates across the city in the May general election, including Socialist Party Scotland member, Brian Smith.