International Socialists (CWI Scotland)

Not a yard will close - Not a man down the road

Glasgow in 1971 was an exciting place to be. Thousands of workers had occupied several shipyards on the Clyde to force the Tory Government of Edward Heath to change their decision to close the shipyards.  At the forefront of that struggle were several shop stewards leaders and the most prominent of those was Jimmy Reid who died on 20th August 2010 aged 78.

 Ronnie Stevenson - Glasgow

Members of the Socialist Party Scotland played a central role in initiating and helping to organise budget day protests in cities across Scotland.

Tens of thousands of low paid council workers in Dundee and across Scotland are facing three years of cuts in wages following their employers (CoSLA) pay offer.
 
With inflation rates for the year to March 2010 at 3.4% and 4.4% (depending on which figure is used) CoSLA's offer of 1% for 2010, 0% for 2011 and 0.5% for 2012 represents year-on-year pay cuts for more than 150,000 workers in Scotland.

Almost 100 UNISON members at Stow College have won a pay rise of £300 for 2009/10 and two days additional annual leave after the threat of strike action. The college did not begin to make any offers until after the workers, who provide support services to students, voted by 91% in favour of strike action. 
 
Two weeks before the strike action was to begin the employer offered £200, a £50 one-off payment and additional leave from 2011. In the week before the strike they brought forward the additional leave to 2010. The workers rejected both these offers.

Fight needed to safeguard jobs and working conditions

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) leadership have agreed a deal with Royal Mail that they say “delivers on the major issues which postal workers have fought for”. The 80 page agreement has been met with a wide range of views amongst CWU members, as it has produced many “winners” but also a large amount of losers. Many delivery workers could lose between £10 and £30 a week.

Gary Clark, assistant branch secretary, Scotland No.2 branch CWU

Following the example set by Glasgow City Unison branch to launch a trade union and community groups fight back against cuts in jobs and services in the city, UNISON, GMB, UNITE, EIS, both Clydebank and Dumbarton TUC and local community groups have joined the fight in West Dunbartonshire. 

By a West Dunbartonshire worker

On the decision of one judge and at the behest of British Airways bosses, the workers of Britain and their trade unions have been told that the democratic right to strike has been cancelled.

This "disgraceful legal judgment" as the union Unite correctly called it, makes voting in any union ballot almost irrelevant if it does not suit the wishes of the bosses and their friends in the judiciary. Any strike can be declared 'illegal'.

Every commentator has admitted that the so-called ballot irregularities would not have made a blind bit of difference to the outcome of the strike ballot. Unless the whole trade union movement faces up to what is required then the unions face the danger of being put back in legal terms to the infamous Taff Vale judgment of 1906 which made unions liable for commercial damages following the effect of any strikes they organised.

Support the Postal Workers - Stop Royal Mail’s scabbing operation

Monday 9th November 12 noon

Bathgate Delivery Office, Inchmuir Road, Whitehill Industrial Estate

March to scab mail centre in Bathgate

Speakers at rally include:
Billy Hayes (CWU general secretary), Bob Crow (RMT general secretary), Janice Godrich (PCS national president)


Time to plan for all-out postal strike

Editorial from the Socialist - The paper of the Socialist Party England and Wales

The third week of national strike action at Royal Mail has seen the bosses on the run. They fear the disruption of mail in the pre-Christmas period when over two billion letters, cards and parcels are processed through the system.

They thought they could force the union into making more concessions just as they did in the 2007 deal, which many postal workers (and how right they were) feared was the thin edge of the wedge. The plans of Royal Mail to cut jobs, intensify workloads and drive working conditions back into the Victorian age have been completely exposed by their actions since the 2007 deal.

Gary Clark, Sub area rep.
Scotland No.2 CWU 

Postal workers across the country are getting ready for a second round of strike action. These are not strikes, as is being put forward by the Royal Mail management, against modernisation or a workforce who just don’t want to work.This is a strike to defend a national service which we can be proud of.

Postal workers in the CWU are balloting for a national strike against cuts, job losses and attacks on the union.

Jane James

This follows hundreds of strikes in postal workplaces across the country where workers have taken action to defend jobs, pay, conditions, and their union reps from attacks by Royal Mail management.

Many workplaces have requested strike ballots which have not been processed.

Workers action needed to save jobs at Johnnie Walker 

Diageo, the global drinks multinational, is to press ahead with its planned jobs slaughter in the West of Scotland. A total of 900 jobs are due to be lost at Johnnie Walker’s bottling plant in Kilmarnock and the distillery at Port Dundas in Glasgow. Diageo bosses rejected the Scottish governments “alternative business plan” that had proposed a new bottling plant in Kilmarnock but with hundreds of fewer jobs. Despite making profits last year of over £2 billion the Diageo bosses rejected the offer of government money and said: "We examined the alternative proposals thoroughly. They don't deliver a business model that would be good for either Diageo or Scotland.

Nationalise to save jobs and the environment
 
The 25 Vestas workers occupying the wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight have created an international furore over jobs and the future of the environment. They have huge support from their work colleagues, families and workers on the Isle of Wight and beyond.

Nick Chaffey

Workers action can defeat bosses jobs cuts

“We have to look at our cost base on a global basis."

This was the cynical defence used by multibillion pound drinks company Diageo to justify their intention to axe over 900 jobs in the west of Scotland. Unless these proposals are defeated the hammer blow will be felt hardest at the Johnnie Walker bottling plant in Kilmarnock which faces closure and the loss of 700 jobs. 200 more will go at the Port Dundas distillery in Glasgow.

Philip Stott

In a symbolic act of defiance, sacked construction workers burned their dismissal letters outside Lindsey Oil Refinery (LOR) on Monday 22 June. This sent a clear message to the bosses of Total (LOR owners) that mass sackings, in effect a lock-out, will not intimidate hundreds of strikers back to work. As GMB steward Phil Whitehurst said: "Let them show us how many want to go back in there crawling on their bellies with their begging bowls."

Keith Gibson, LOR strike committee

Hundreds of Lindsey contract workers walked out on unofficial and 'illegal' strike action on Thursday 11 June to stop 51 redundancies being imposed without consultation or the opportunity to transfer to another contractor. Since then, Total have refused to negotiate unless there is a return to work, yet have insisted that the 51 redundancies would go ahead anyway.

“If they want a fight, let’s give them one”! 

Environmental workers in Glasgow will be starting an indefenite strike from Monday 10th August in a dispute against the City Council and in defence of the working week. Following a successful strike ballot in June the Council agreed to withdraw redundancy notices they had sent out to workers with demands that they sign new contracts of employment, including the issue that was at the heart of the dispute the proposed 'four days on/ four days off' rota. This would involve weekends being viewed as normal working days. Despite negoitiations there has been no significant movement by the employers and the strike action will now begin involving street cleaners, and roads and parks staff who are members of the GMB, Unite and Unison. Bin workers who are not included in the strike ballot are expected to refuse to cross the picket lines.  

Click to read the article we carried in June explaining the background to the dispute. 
 

Ian Leech, Glasgow Unison, personal capacity