Issue 122
Mar - Apr 2021
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This issue is our traditional STUC congress themed issue. In it, and in addition to hearing from the STUC itself, we ask the union affiliates of our sister organisation, the Jimmy Reid Foundation, to consider five questions a year after the pandemic began and as we head into the 6 May Scottish Parliament elections. The […]
Roz Foyer outlines the STUC agenda for the coming period and how it is working to gain these goals. Across Scotland there are thousands of workers’ families, retired workers’ friends and communities who are carrying the pain of loss of their loved ones. The shocking statistic of over 100,000 COVID-19 related deaths is an indictment […]
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 […]
Gregor Gall analyses a recent report by the Fair Work Convention and finds it fatally flawed. The ‘Fair Work Framework’ (FWF) has been the Scottish Government’s flagship programme on employment issues since 2016. It sets out to make Scotland a ‘fair work’ nation by 2025. With the forthcoming Scottish Parliament elections, this next parliament will […]
Stuart Graham lays out what union activists in Glasgow are organising for in the run-up to COP26. Glasgow Trades Union Council (GTUC) attended the STUC Trades Councils conference at the end of January. We requested a session was added to deal with the COP26 conference in Glasgow in November and the required level of mobilisation […]
Malcolm Harvey assesses the likely outcome that we shall wake up to on 7 May 2021. Elections happen frequently in democracies; in multi-level polities, even more frequently. Years without elections seem unusual – and even when they occur, as in 2020, regular polling keeps the idea in our heads that an election is just around […]
Neil Findlay lays out the case for a third option in any future referendum. Tony Benn famously set out five questions of democracy and urged all of us to ask them of those in power: What power have you got; where did you get it from; in whose interests do you use it; to whom […]
A Private War (2018), director: Matthew Heineman, screenwriters: Arash Amel and Marie Brenner Reviewed by Jackie Bergson Bridging the period from when war correspondent, Marie Colvin, reported from within Sri Lanka in 2001 until the moment when she was killed in 2012, A Private War begins and ends with real footage from the place where […]
Judy Cox, Rebellious Daughters of History, 2021, Redwords, 9781912926947, £10, pp128 Reviewed by Lorna McKinnon Where can we look to see the seedlings of the ideas we hold today in terms of the struggle for women’s liberation, for the liberation of all, for the abolition of slavery, and for an end to the atrocities of […]
‘Visionaries’ by David McKinstry, Glasgow As winter turned to spring And Churchill’s bombast stilled, The nation turned to quiet Clem Voting for a rebuild. Up went the homes Finally for heroes to fit, Down went the miners Into nationalised pit. Nye valued good health Stuffed doctors’ mouths with gold, As a price worth paying For […]
In Britain, it is now a year since the Coronavirus pandemic reached our shores. And to mark the first anniversary of lockdown, we are having another lockdown. I would be tempted to say it’s like Groundhog Day, but I said that yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. So, in case you […]