UNISON members in Glasgow City Council’s residential homes for older people will be taking strike action from Monday night for 48 hours to resist cuts in pay, unacceptable changes to job roles and a move to twelve and a half hour shifts. Glasgow City Council want to cut up to 7% of the wages of 182 workers, out of a workforce of just over 500, through introducing the new shift pattern. 122 full time workers face a loss of £1495 per year and 60 part timers a loss of £794 per year. This is totally unacceptable.

The Council is also refusing to maintain the wages of any worker who has been in a temporary higher graded post for less than four years. UNISON views this four year criteria as unacceptably long.

The Council also wish to alter the job roles of the lowest paid workers to include the administration of medicines. UNISON does not believe that these workers are paid the correct rate of pay for tasks of this responsibility.

UNISON also believes that the staff to resident ratio on the new night shift is inadequate.

The Council have tried to bully workers into agreeing to the wage cuts and changes on an individual basis. The Council has been unwilling to reach an agreement with the trade union. UNISON members do not take this strike action lightly but have been left with no alternative.

Send messages of support to Glasgow City Unison enquiries@glasgowcityunison.co.uk

Glasgow Residential Workers Strike Lobby – Social Work HQ, 40 John St,

Tuesday 14 January, 12 noon to 1pm. Please get along and support the UNISON members in their dispute with the Council

Labour council declares war on its own workers

The Labour-led Glasgow City Council is going to war against its own workforce. Senior officials and politicians are conducting an unprecedented onslaught on the pay and terms and conditions of hundreds of employees.

Quite rightly and courageously Unison members in Glasgow have refused to accept such blackmail and are fighting back against these outrageous attacks.

They are attempting to enforce through bully-boy methods – often attempting to bypass the trade union Unison – cuts to workers’ pay and fording them to sign-up to worse contracts of employment.

Over the past months strike action among social workers in the Homelessness service; pupil support assistants in Education and now residential staff in homes for the elderly are fighting back. The vast majority of these workers are low paid by any standards. They cannot afford to accept cuts to pay; work longer shifts as well as accepting increased workloads and responsibilities.

Yet the Labour controlled council is attempting to put the boot in. In effect they are carrying out Tory cuts and passing them on to their own workforce and the users of essential public services across the city of Glasgow.

The residential care workers strike action is a tremendous example of caring and dedicated staff pushed beyond the limits of what any worker can accept. Their strike deserves the full support of all trade unionists across Glasgow and Scotland.

A fighting union

Glasgow City Unison organises over 11,000 workers who are employed by the council and related services.

The Unison branch – with a fighting socialist leadership which has members of Socialist Party Scotland play- ing a key role – is the main obstacle to the plans of the politicians and senior officials to carry out these cuts.

From the start of the austerity onslaught, Glasgow Unison have taken a principled position of opposing all cuts to jobs, wages and public services.

They have demanded that councils refuse to implement the Tory cuts and instead set no-cuts budgets that defend workers and the users of these services.

Councils have financial and borrowing powers that would allow them to refuse to make the cuts and instead set needs budgets that protect jobs and services.

This could be done while building a mass campaign with communities and trade unionists to demand the money

The socialist Liverpool council in the 1980’s did exactly this. They refused to make cuts and won back millions of pounds from the Thatcher government to invest in jobs, homes and services. This could be done today, if we had councillors who were prepared to fight.

We do not accept that we should have to pay for this economic crisis while the bankers and billionaires who caused it get even richer at our expense.

Build the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition

It’s clear that our elected politicians, including Labour and the SNP, are not prepared to fight the cuts. Instead, they propose a continuation of austerity, although perhaps at a slower pace at best. The trade unions, like Unison, Unite and the GMB etc give millions of pounds every year to the Labour Party. And for what in return ?

Labour leaders like Milliband and Balls promise not to reverse the cuts, to continue with austerity as long as it takes. Labour and SNP councils are putting the boot in to their own workers and the users of public services by making savage cuts.

Today, more than ever, we need a new mass workers party to give a voice for ordinary working people. A party that opposes all the cuts, stands for public ownership, taxing the rich and big business and fights for socialism.

Socialist Party Scotland calls for the unions to break from Labour and, along with those unions that are not affiliated to the Labour party, launch a new trade union-led party. As a step in this direction the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition was set-up by the Socialist Party with support from the RMT trade union and other left organisations to provide candidates who’ll fight the cuts.

We stood in the recent Shettleston by election in Glasgow, coming 5th out of 12 candidates. TUSC is standing 650 candidates in the local elections in England and Wales in May this year. Here in Scotland we’ll be planning to stand a slate of candidates for the 2015 general election.

You can get involved in helping to build TUSC by contacting us via the website (see below) We need a voice for workers and young people. Help us build it.

See www.tusc.org.uk