Pat Rafferty sees much opportunity to strengthen union organisation amid the challenges of COVID. The last year has been one of the most challenging for us as we have had to confront a threat to our way of life, and a direct threat to human life. Many of us have struggled with not being able […]
Cat Boyd eyes opportunities to put class before constitution in the coming period. If there’s anything good to say about the pandemic, it’s that unions have been forced to rethink our strategies. The turbulence of 2020 encouraged us to contemplate how we do things. COVID-19 should force those in power to re-evaluate too, because what’s […]
Larry Flanagan does not pull his punches in laying out what the EIS demands of the Scottish Government. Scottish education, whether it be schools, colleges, or universities, has rarely been far from the headlines throughout the pandemic, which perhaps underlines how critical education is to our communities and, indeed, to society as a whole. The […]
Denise Christie says our fire and rescue service requires the Scottish Government to make a decision turn. The COVID-19 pandemic very quickly forced us to find new ways our movement can continue to campaign and organise, away from the traditional means we have been used to for many years. The FBU has very effective democratic […]
Phil Fairlie says the time for debts to be paid to public service workers has now arrived. Following a year of living life that has been completely dominated by a global pandemic and one which has had an immeasurable impact on every one of us in a way we could never have envisaged, we now […]
Mary Senior surveys the changing landscape to identify the countless challenges in higher education. In unprecedented times, last March the University and College Union’s (UCU) members returned from 14 days of strike action – over pensions, casual contracts, workloads and discriminatory pay – to a global health pandemic and lockdown. Overnight, university staff rose to […]
Mike Kirby reports that UNISON Scotland is meeting the challenge of organising online. Over the last year, UNISON branches across Scotland have adapted to the radically changed circumstances in which we have been operating. We have expanded and developed our range of organising and campaigning techniques, and we have grown in number. The vast bulk […]
Craig Anderson shows how the CWU union takes a class position on communication. The COVID pandemic has changed how we look at home and work, and how we look out into the world. Millions of workers have had to get to grips with working at home and shopping from home, whilst of students, pupils and […]
Mark Griffin explains the rationale behind his Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council Bill. The testimonies I heard from the women GMB union members in January were quite simply heart-breaking. Meeting them in the final weeks of my consultation on a Proposed Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council Bill, what they retold crystallised just how out of […]
Stephen Smellie says of the Feeley report it’s a case of several steps forward and massive one back. The broken system of social care has been fully exposed during the pandemic. It is a system designed to create a market so private companies can generate profits, not one designed to deliver care. It created minimum-wage-level-insecure […]