Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/564/6831
From The Socialist newspaper, 28 January 2009
Solid support for Glasgow strike
Glasgow council's 21 community service supervisors remain on indefinite strike. The strike is rock solid as it enters the fourth week.
Brian Smith
The council remains intransigent and is still refusing to withdraw the pay cuts the strikers face under their "service reform" proposals. The strikers and their trade union, Unison, are in favour of improving the service and have suggested ways in which the service could be improved. But under the council's plans, some of the workers face pay cuts of over £2,000.
The workers supervise serious, violent and repeat offenders who have been given community service as an alternative to prison. They work on their own every day with five offenders in placements undertaking gardening, home decoration, joinery or environmental projects.
The council wants the workers to undertake additional duties whilst cutting their pay. Yet those workers doing the same job with offenders who are in individual work placements will be on the higher grade that the strikers are demanding.
At a time when the eyes of the public and the parliament are on how alternatives to prison can be improved you would think that the largest provider of those services in Scotland would be making serious efforts to resolve an indefinite strike. But no, Glasgow council is hoping the strikers will just go away.
Glasgow Unison is stepping up its support for these strikers and is now considering how to escalate the action into other areas of Glasgow's criminal justice services.
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In The Socialist 28 January 2009:
Era of illusions in capitalism ending
The crisis in manufacturing: Fighting for jobs and living standards
No pay discrimination against young people
Slaughter in Gaza
Coventry protest over Gaza onslaught
Israel: Thousands march in Jaffa against Gaza massacre
Anti-racism
Stop the deportation of Yahya Al-Faifi
Socialist Party campaigns
Socialist councillor opposes Tory plans for education privatisation
Labour's abandoning of the working class
Croydon: Striking against academies
Scotland: Step up opposition to cuts
Socialist Party workplace news
Say 'no' to the Metro privateers
Amicus Unity Gazette left with egg on its face
Victory for left in Glasgow Unison
Solid support for Glasgow strike
Building a fighting Unison leadership
Education
Build a mass movement for free education
Marxist analysis: history
Germany 1919 The Spartacist uprising
International socialist news and analysis
Russia: Bosses sack auto-factory union leader
Courageous socialist activist, campaigning journalist and human rights activist
Socialist Party news
Socialist Party reviews
A People's History of Sports in the United States
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