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UNISON's Tom Connolly made the following submission to Edinburgh City Council's budget meeting today as Joint Trade Unions Staff Side Secretary.
As we come towards the end of the organisational review processes associated with the Transformation programme, we have witnessed the loss of over 1400 jobs.
We have real concerns of the current and future impact on our member’s terms and conditions, their lack of resources and excessive workloads and the negative impact that this has on the services provided to the most vulnerable and deprived.
UNISON City of Edinburgh Branch has reacted to the news that Edinburgh Council leader Andrew Burns is to stand down at the next election.
UNISON Edinburgh lead negotiator Tom Connolly said: “Andrew has always made himself available to UNISON and the other trade unions and has engaged with us on regular basis throughout his time as leader. He has always done this in a respectful, positive and constructive manner.”
Along with the unions, Andrew Burns played an important role in stopping the wholesale privatisation of Edinburgh’s services. His willingness to forge alliances and cooperation with others where they had a common aim to defend Edinburgh’s services led to the unique Capital Coalition.
John Stevenson, Edinburgh Branch President added: “Huge challenges face Andrew for the rest of his term of office as local government carries the lion’s share of Westminster and Holyrood cuts. Not least of those will be how to stand by the pledge of no compulsory redundancies.”
UNISON warns Edinburgh councillors to be sure what they are signing up to
UNISON is urging City of Edinburgh councillors meeting today to ‘be sure what they are signing up to’ when they consider plans for almost 1,000 job losses and cuts of £107 million.
“The plans before the council are so vague and so lacking in detail that councillors are unlikely to know exactly what they are voting for when it comes to delivering services. They need to be sure what they are signing up to”, UNISON will tell councillors.
“After years of £90million cut upon £90million cut and a 20% reduction in funds, another £107million cut will mean whole services are likely to vanish”, Amanda Kerr, UNISON Edinburgh branch secretary.
“It is time for Governments at Westminster and Holyrood to stop blaming councils for cutting services while starving them of the money to provide those services.”
A great turnout at Edinburgh's Mayday march and rally today heard Owen Jones call on the labour movement to give people hope and defend the NHS, the welfare state and all that was won by 'struggle and sacrifice' in our history.
"We need to give hope to those who get up in the morning to go to work to earn their poverty. We should say that if you are in work the least you can expect is a living wage", he told the packed rally at the Pleasance theatre.
The money is there. Governments can always find billions for war, to bomb and to kill but they tell the disabled they can't afford for them to have a so-called spare room. They demonise those on benefits by talking up the £1.2 billion wrongly claimed, and doing nothing about the £25 billion lost in tax avoidance to the richest.
Edinburgh and London UNISON members are bringing an acclaimed film to the city during the festival on 20 August to highlight the dangers of wholesale privatisation of council services.
Edinburgh City Libraries
are woefully understaffed. In the last five years this service has lost over 50
members of staff who have never been replaced. With such a huge staffing
shortfall, the Library Service cannot be expected to adequately and safely
staff all library locations and continue to provide high quality services to
the people of Edinburgh. Despite this, Library Management want to
extend Saturday opening which will further stretch an already depleted
workforce.
This problem is only
going to get worse. Several colleagues are going to have their temporary
contracts terminated and the 50 vacant posts are due to be deleted from the
staffing structure by the start of the next financial year.
The decision to cut
these jobs comes as a result of the Service Prioritisation packages designed to
make £550,000 savings from the budget. There was a recent £300,000 payment
which was hoped would be used to remedy the staffing crisis. This money is
being diverted to maintain Sunday opening hours. We feel this situation is unacceptable and
unsustainable.
WHY WEREN’T YOU TOLD ABOUT THIS?
City
of Edinburgh Council
claim you were. They state that their decision was made
as a result of one of the biggest public consultations in their history. 10,000
respondents is an impressive figure but it pales into insignificance when you
consider that there are 180,000 registered
library users in Edinburgh. Only 5.5% of library users were consulted.
That's 170,000 people who did not have a say in their library service – enough
to simultaneously fill both Easter Road and Tynecastle Stadia 4.5 times over.
This cannot be described as proper consultation.
WHAT SERVICES WILL BE
LOST?
BookBug/Books for Babies/Rhymetimes
These
awarding winning programmes which are set up, run and led by frontline staff
have been proven to help in the mental and physical development of babies and
toddlers. It has been shown to improve literacy levels, the ability to
interact with others in a positive manner and also assists new mothers in
developing their parenting skills. These are extremely valuable programmes yet,
last year, two designated BookBug workers were lost to cuts.
Homework Clubs
These
after-school workshops were set up to advise and assist young people in their education
and are also run by frontline staff. Evidence shows that the
Homework Clubs increases the potential for increased academic achievement amongst participants and it cannot
be doubted that this increases their future employment prospects.
Adult literacy/Computer classes
These
are other valuable services run and led by frontline staff. The positive outcomes
are immediately noticeable. People become more confident as a direct result of
these classes and are more prepared to interact with others. Participants are also more prepared to pursue
further self improvement and, as a result, their employment prospects
rise.
Library Link
Library
Link is yet another service provided by frontline staff. It provides a regular opportunity for the
elderly and infirm to visit their local library on a weekly basis. As well as
being able to access the library services whilst having a cup of
tea, in many cases this service is the only chance many of these people
get the chance to leave their homes, meet friends or new people and generally
interact.
Housebound Runs
There
are some who, through no fault of their own, are unable to visit their local
library. As a result staff deliver library services to them. Each customer has their
own designated member of staff who forms a relationship with them and develops
a working knowledge of their reading preferences. Staff can tailor the service
specifically to that individual customer. This ensures that the most vulnerable
people are not denied the services that you and I enjoy from our library
service.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
These
services, along with many others, will disappear. Staff numbers are being
decimated and the working week for the remaining staff is getting longer. The quality and provision of the service will
suffer irrecoverably. We cannot
allow this to happen.
In these tough economic times we needa strong, healthy and viable library service to help support vulnerable service users. One quarter of the population of Scotland have difficulty with
reading and writing – and this percentage increases in areas of our communities that
suffer from deprivation. We
need librarians to help break
the cycle of low literacy levels which are linked to poverty. When individuals
do well, so do their families, communities and employers, present and
future.
UNISON are due to make a delegation to the meeting of the Full Council on Thursday 15 March to put forward our concerns.
We will continue to make the case and fight for our Library service but we NEED your help!
WHAT YOU CAN DO
You know the facts - now contact your
councillor. Raise your concerns directly with them and insist that Libraries
need adequate staffing levels to continue to provide an excellent service to you, your
family and the people of Edinburgh.
You can also join the library. To value this
service we've got to use it. All you need is photo ID and you're up and
running. There's a world of knowledge just waiting for you in your
local library.
UNISON has called on today’s Edinburgh Council meeting to protect services and pay a living wage to help boost the local economy out of recession.
The union has also called on Holyrood and Westminster to stop starving local authorities of funding and take positive action to invest in services and jobs.
“We don’t doubt that the Council faces difficult challenges from huge cuts in central government funding in the next three years. But it is now time to take a different approach and abandon costly consultants and privatisations and get on with engaging their own workers in protecting everyone’s local services”, said John Stevenson, Edinburgh UNISON President.
“There is an alternative to the slash and burn that is getting the whole economy deeper and deeper into trouble”, said Mr Stevenson, calling on national government to fund local councils properly and “abandon the failed policies of austerity which are creating more unemployment, more poverty and fatally undermining the services we all rely on.”
“The best way to deal with the deficit is to create employment, not cut it. Rebuilding public services benefits both the public sector and the private sector. The more people there are in work, the more there is in taxes to deal with the deficit and the more there is to put back into the economy.
“One way to do that in Edinburgh would be to pay a living wage of at least £7.20 an hour and encourage other employers to do the same. Unlike the very rich, low paid public service workers spend most of what they earn in the local economy.That money would go into Edinburgh businesses at a time when they need it most.
“Overall, the best way to use the undoubted wealth that exists in the UK is to put it to work for everyone rather than being hoarded by the few.”
UNISON Scotland has welcomed the decision by Edinburgh City Council to support in-house bids for vital city services instead of privatising them.
The full council voted today for a joint Labour-SNP amendment with Green Party backing which overturned a proposal by the ruling Lib Dem led coalition to award a contract for Integrated Facilities Management to private bidder Mitie.
UNISON branch President John Stevenson said: "This is the best outcome we could have got - following the victory in November for keeping Environmental Services public, and the recent abandonment of the ruling group's plans to privatise Corporate and Transactional Services. John Stevenson told the full Council meeting this morning:
"UNISON has been campaigning to keep these services in-house for three reasons. Firstly because we think it is the right thing to do. We think it is right that quality public services are delivered by a public service team directly accountable to the people of Edinburgh through their elected councillors. We think it is right that our taxes should go directly to services, to the people who deliver them and the people who rely on them, rather than to profits and shareholders.
"Secondly because we believe that the public sector comparators - the in-house options - have risen to the challenge and will deliver not only best value but a continuing commitment to public services in Edinburgh.
"And thirdly because we believe that it is right that the Council should show trust, confidence and respect in its own workforce."
John Stevenson said: "At the beginning of the process, the Council made it clear that there would have to be a compelling case for privatisation. We clearly believe that a compelling case has NOT been made for privatisation and we believe we have consistently provided compelling and credible analysis and evidence to show that.
"The unions and Council employees have put enormous work into this process. We have shown in detail that the in-house options have been realistic, fair and efficient - but most of all workable - especially if we have a level playing field and like is compared with like."
UNISON's Peter Hunter added; "This is the the death of Scotland's largest council privatisation proposal ever which, given the NHS position, begs the question whether the door is permanently closed on future privatisation plans across the public sector as a whole?"
The path to justice and compensation has been cleared for hundreds of UNISON members today as Edinburgh City Council abandoned its defence of long running equal pay claims for ex APT&C staff.
The Council has abandoned its plans to appeal against the right of ex APT&C staff to make equal pay claims. Through Thompson's solicitors, UNISON is representing over 1,000 affected people. They are consulting those involved members will hear more details very soon.
A cold wet morning on the picket line but we're not alone by any means. STV reports that 50,000 will be on strike in Edinburgh and Lothians. #unisonscotn30
Check out the website for full details http://www.unison-edinburgh.org.uk/
Why the Edinburgh in-house option is 'best value'. UNISON has issued a briefing on why the In-House Environment Option is 'best value' and should be supported by councillors on 24 November: http://www.unison-edinburgh.org.uk/citynotforsale/EnviroBriefng.pdf . UNISON examines all the privatisation issues in a detailed briefing to councillors and urges a decision made on 'best value' for the people of Edinburgh (PDF document) 23 Nov. Check out the website for full details http://www.unison-edinburgh.org.uk/
A packed public consultation organised by UNISON last night (27 June) heard calls for Edinburgh's Lib Dem/ SNP council to delay its £1 billion privatisation plans until the public is properly consulted.
Check out this new video urging Edinburgh citizens to oppose privatisation and come to our public consultation on 27 June....Check out the website for full details http://www.unison-edinburgh.org.uk/
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This blog is for breaking news and comment. For more info and news see the main branch website at www.unison-edinburgh.org.uk
