The Edinburgh Evening News today carries an article entitled 'Unions Hold 'Funeral' for Volunteer Jobs.' Now I'm no fan of any Scotsman publication these days as I find the average standard of journalism abysmal and the anti-Scottish government bias makes many articles asinine, but sometimes there is something which catches the eye.
Unite organised a 'funeral' procession outside the Scottish Parliament today as a protest about lost jobs and services in the voluntary sector. Firstly isn't Unite a UK wide union? Why aren't there protests such as this organised in England especially when the Guardian reports today that the sector in England also has problems? Many charities are UK wide such as Barnardos.
My belief is that this protest was instigated by the UK union and the Scottish branch of Unite were instructed to orchestrate the protest which is really little to do with the voluntary sector and much to do with another attempt at embarrassing the Scottish government.
Some of these voluntary organisations have staff who are very well paid but they do have their fair share of lower paid workers. Now the lower paid workers want parity with public service staff who do similar jobs and the hourly rate of £7 an hour was mentioned on BBC Newsround as the amount. Wasn't it just the other week that Stephen Purcell said there were 700 staff in Glasgow Council earning only the basic wage of £5.73 and he intended to increase it to £7 an hour.
Now I see what this is about, it's nothing to do with cuts, it's an attempt to increase the minimum wage initially in the voluntary sector then of course the public sector staff in all Scottish councils bar Glasgow, who are paid less than £7 an hour, will have a perfect case. All this at the beginning of a recession which is being called the worst since the 1930s.
Unite had a fine day for their demonstration which was paid for by their members of course. As one EEN commenter Mik Wilso said, "Hire a horse drawn hearse. Great use of union funds. Still its less for the Labour Party."
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4 comments:
Would be good to see a hearse with Labour's corpse interred.
Especially Scottish labour which has caused so much of the destruction of my country Oldrightie, all at the command of their English counterparts of course.
subrosa,
You've got to appreciate that most full-time union officials are in Labour's pockets and vice versa.
At union conference after conference motions are put up for the unions, who do not currently pay, to contribute to Labour.
Don't imagine for one minute that when their members go on strike that these full-timers lose a penny from their salaries.
Oh I realise the union leaders have handsome homes and pensions brownlie. What I don't understand is why so many public service employees are so stupid to continue to keep these people in their elite lifestyles.
Doesn't say much for most public service workers does it, or are they all brainwashed?
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