SNP council launches anti-union onslaught
West Dunbartonshire’s SNP council has begun scandalous moves to decimate trade union facility time for its workers. Justifying this Tory-like attack on trade union representation, the council claimed it had carried out an on-line survey of employees that showed a majority did not believe they were well served by their trade unions. However, only 500 of the 5,500 council staff took part, and of those a mere 347 – 6% of the workforce – responded negatively to the skewed internet survey.
The initial proposal was to cut the 3.5 full time union conveners to one. The unions involved are Unison, GMB, Unite and the EIS. As the joint trade union statement points out: “This is a direct attack on the democracy of the trade unions and will undermine our efforts to represent our members.
“We have no confidence in the consultation and we do not accept that this is a fair representation of our membership. The SNP have been dishonest in their approach and their commitment to support the trade unions and to adopt the unions anti-austerity campaign. This implies that SNP have taken these decisions to ensure they can make cuts to services and staff with no opposition from the trade unions.”
The unacceptable attack on democracy and workers’ rights comes in the wake of an austerity budget, agreed with Tory support, on March 5th. It was this budget that included within it a proposal to slash union facility time by two-thirds.
Jim Halfpenny, the co-West Dunbartonshire EIS convener and a leader of a recent long-running teachers strike in the area, told us: “It’s unbelievable that the SNP can claim to be pro-trade union and anti-austerity and then carry out not only a cuts budget but one that deliberately seeks to decisively weaken trade union organisation. It’s an attack that is worthy of a rabid anti-union Tory government. The proposal must be dumped immediately. Moreover, our refusal to accept cuts to services, as well as our members pay, jobs and terms and conditions, will go on.”
