Unite housing strikers fight on in Aberdeen
Lucas Grant, Aberdeen Socialist Party Scotland
The dispute over the merging of the housing officer and support officer roles within the council housing department of Aberdeen City Council is continuing. Monday 12th of July marked the sixth day of industrial action by Unite members. A four day strike begins on July 27. Socialist Party Scotland has been at pickets in solidarity with Aberdeen City Council workers who are taking part in this crucial fight against the council’s cutbacks to crucial services.
We spoke to John Boland, the Unite full time regional officer covering Aberdeen City Council.
Can you give an overview of the current struggle that Unite members are facing within the housing department at Aberdeen City Council?
“We’ve had ongoing discussions with the council for over a year regarding their proposals to merge the housing officer and support officer posts together.
“Our members have been very clear that they don’t think this will work; they don’t think it will work for them but they also don’t think it will work for the people of Aberdeen, particularly the most vulnerable who rely on these services.
“Unfortunately, the council seem determined to go ahead with it and members have put forward several alternative proposals that have been rejected by the council and we can only see that this is being done as financial savings by the council when considering Aberdeen City Council’s record of cutting services and pushing through more cuts than any other council in Scotland.
“We’re hopeful that we can get to a resolution. We’re on day six of our strike action and we will be escalating that to four-day stoppages starting on the 27th of July but we hope that the council will come back to us before that and get into meaningful talks and listen to the workforce.”
What are the main concerns of workers with this industrial action?
“The main concerns of our members are around the workload but really the services that they are actually going to be able to provide, I mean the roles of a housing officer and support officer are totally different.
“Housing officers are mainly dealing with actually letting the housing, rent arrears, ensuring repairs are done. Support officers are there to support those most vulnerable in our society, merging the two roles together means that somethings got to give and it’s a conflict of interest. How can you go to someone one week dealing with arrears and actually dealing with housing issues and then the next week going in and actually trying to support them in the issues that they’ve got?
“They’re not going to want the same person and this is what our members have been saying since the start of this dispute and Aberdeen City Council isn’t listening to them.”
Over the past few years we have seen Aberdeen City Council setting major cuts budgets affecting vital services. Do you see this as a continuation of this?
“Unfortunately yeah, we do see this as a continuation. I mean, we see these cuts to actual council budgets across Scotland and I think that it is something that needs to be looked at in the big picture. How actual councils budgets are done, if adequate money is actually given for the budgets but for us, we see Aberdeen City Council making lots of cuts, more cuts than any other council in Scotland and we see this as another cut that’s going to actually reduce the service for the people of Aberdeen.“
Socialist Party Scotland calls for:
- Services and the workers within them must have the support they require. All cuts are completely unacceptable and must be fought against through combined struggle of workers.
- Scottish councils need true democratic oversight of their operations by workers and the public, run collectively by fully accountable delegates at all levels.
- Councils throughout Scotland and the UK must set no cuts budgets to cease the gutting of our public services.
- We call for Aberdeen City Council to immediately agree the demands of Unite members who are undertaking industrial action.
