Glasgow Care Workers action wins important breakthrough for 400 Unison members

Nearly 400 UNISON members in Glasgow City Council’s homes for older people have secured important concessions and forced back an anti-trade union and anti-collective bargaining approach from the Labour controlled council. Members took seven days of strike action in January and February in what became as increasingly bitter dispute.

In early 2014, the council moved ahead with the implementation of cuts in shift payments, changes to job roles and a move to twelve and a half hour shifts.

The changes included 122 full time workers losing £1495 per year and 60 part timers losing of £794 per year. The Council also refused to maintain the wages of any worker who had been in a temporary higher graded post for less than four years and sought to alter the job roles of the lowest paid workers to include the administration of medicines.

UNISON members viewed the new staff to resident ratio on the new twelve and a half hour night shift as inadequate and a risk to the care of the 600 residents.

During late 2013, the Council had tried to bully workers into agreeing to the changes on an individual basis through the issuing of five individual letters, ignoring the normal collective bargaining arrangements (a similar approach was tried and also failed in October 2013 in a dispute with over 1,000 pupil support assistants from the same UNISON branch). Under pressure workers signed up to the these changes through fear of their jobs.

Members voted by 3 to 1 to take strike action with the first days of action on 14^th and 15^th January. A further five strike days took place over the next four weeks.

The strikes had a huge impact on the residential service, secured very good media coverage, won widespread support from residents and their families and rattled the senior council managers and politicians.

The council’s initial response was to publicly attack their own workforce including a bizarre and unfounded public rant by the social work director about strikers wearing “dark clothes and balaclavas whilst wandering about the gardens of the homes” during strike days.

The UNISON branch organised members meetings during the strikes to allow those taking the action to determine the next steps in their action, called two protests at the council chambers, co-ordinated public leafleting and ensured that generous strike hardship payments were made when required.

New stewards were elected and as in most disputes a core group of members, many of whom had never taken strike action before or been involved in the trade union branch, became key local organisers and contributors to how the dispute was run.

The branch also received hundreds of messages of support from across the UK and some magnificent donations to the strike hardship fund from other UNISON branches.

In late February, due to the increasing pressure on the council and the threat of a further nine days of strike action, leading council officials out with social work services and politicians from the Labour Administration offered to meet with the UNISON Branch. The council tabled a revised offer which included:

• An increase in the core minimum staffing levels in all 15 homes. All nightshifts will have more workers. The council will achieve this by recruiting additional workers.

• A one off payment equal to the value of one year’s loss of pay for those dayshift workers who lost wages due to the cut in their shift payment.

• The consolidation of 47 workers in temporary promoted posts for three years or more. Some workers with less than three years will be able to maintain their current temporary grade for a period of time based on the criteria of “first in, last out”.

• Administration of most medicines by social care assistants in the five new 120 bedded homes due to open over the next 3 years (but not in the current 15 homes) with a restatement of a previous commitment made five years ago that the number of social care workers will never be less than the number of social care assistants in the new homes.

The council said that their revised offer would cost them just under a £1M. The council only made the revised offer due to the pressure exerted on them by UNISON members taking strike action. Compared to where we were in January, the revised offer had more positive than negative aspects. In a ballot of the members, 69% voted to accept the revised offer.

The strikers also pushed back the anti-trade union, anti-collective bargaining approach adopted by the council at the beginning of the dispute. In that respect, the dispute has had a positive impact across the trade union movement in the city and beyond.

With Glasgow City Council expected to make further cuts of £100 million over the next two years, its more than likely that workers pay and terms and conditions will be under threat again. Effective and determined strike action will need to be used again and again, where necessary, to defeat the cuts agenda.