V&A Dundee to open amidst poverty, deprivation and cuts

Wayne Scott, Socialist Party Scotland Dundee branch

This month we will see the opening of the long awaited Victoria & Albert Gallery in Dundee. The grand opening of the £80 million gallery comes less than a year after a report by the End Child Poverty Coalition revealed that the city has one of Scotland’s highest rates of child poverty, with 28% of children growing up below the poverty line.

One third of Dundonians are currently out of work. With little on offer apart from minimum wage jobs and zero-hour contracts, even those in work are now relying on foodbanks in order to feed themselves and their children.

Unjust sanctions against benefit claimants have risen drastically. We’ve also seen a higher number of suicides than any other Scottish city, underpinned by massive cuts to mental health services. This is the reality of austerity in Dundee.

These are common themes in all ‘post industrial’ cities. Dundee’s waterfront was once home to ship building. Skilled employment with strong trade union representation is now increasingly sparse, low pay and insecurity now the norm for many.

jobs

For years now we have heard from politicians about the jobs that would be brought to the local economy from the waterfront development.

The new gallery plans to take on 32 members of staff at the living wage of £8.75 an hour. It is estimated that the number of jobs created so far by the entire development is around 60. Hardly a replacement for the thousands of skilled jobs lost from in the last few decades.

There also remains the question of trade union recognition at the V&A as well as the hotels that are opening up nearby.

Unite have already had to campaign against an unjust tips policy, management bullying and health and safety breaches at the Malmaison Hotel, which opened in 2014.

We would support all efforts by trade unions to build a strong presence on the waterfront to take on exploitative employers.

Along with this, many of the construction companies who have been handed public money are notorious blacklisters, such as BAM Construction and Sir Robert McAlpine.

This is despite promises from the SNP government to not give public contracts to blacklisters.

Why should public money be handed over to these companies who attack the basic right of workers to organise in a trade union?

socialist alternative

Since coming to power in 2010, the Tories have slashed £100 million from Dundee’s budget.

The SNP-led council, instead of fighting the cuts, have implemented them, year after year. We have seen the closure of schools and the loss of 600 jobs at the council.

Can the SNP really claim to be supporting the arts when their councillors have in recent years slashed music tuition for Dundee school students?

Unbelievably, just two weeks before the opening of the V&A the city council announced plans to slash the opening hours of all libraries in the city, with the exception of the one in the city centre.

This scandal goes to the heart of the hypocrisy surrounding the hype over the V&A. How can cutting free and accessible library provision in working class areas do anything other than harm the cultural and educational needs of the majority?

In 2017, I stood as a Dundee Against Cuts/TUSC candidate in the local elections in the city. We outlined the need for councillors to refuse to make the cuts and to build a campaign to win back the millions stolen since.

A socialist council would seek to invest millions into our schools, libraries, community centres, as well as exhibitions, educational opportunities, galleries and cultural centres. We would also embark on a massive programme of public works to create the kind of well paid, skilled jobs and apprenticeships that our city is crying out for.

On the basis of capitalism, low pay, insecurity and unemployment are the best the system has to offer. By building a socialist alternative in the city, we put an end to austerity and the misery that it produces.