Snow: Public service workers at their best

As extreme snow conditions hit hard, public service workers across the country have as usual responded above and beyond the call. Here are just a few examples from Edinburgh of the human faces behind the numbers of jobs facing the axe or being sold off.

Home carers visiting on foot through up to a foot of snow. The Ranger service providing a 4x4 to get them to inaccessible clients. Other staff volunteering their own 4x4s to help out. The police helping out.

Mobilise to defend public services

Closing speech to UNISON Scotland Mobilise 2010 training weekend: That’s the end of our event and I don’t know about you but I’ve been inspired by the weekend. Inspired by the work everyone has put in and about the way everyone has got involved to make it a success.

Aung San Suu Kyi Released – 1 Down, 2,202 To Go

"We will not let the world forget that you and thousands of others are in prison for standing up for democracy and the rights of workers", UNISON President Angela Lynes told 2009 National Conference as it marked Aung San Suu Kyi’s 64th Birthday under house arrest. As she is released today, the Burma Campaign turns to the thousands of other political prisoners in Burma’s jails.

We don’t believe your lies – and we won’t accept your cuts

Expectations were high for the Edinburgh demo. All the signs were that people were building for it. But even then, the turnout exceeded expectations, such is the widespread anger against the unfairness and savagery of the cuts. The anger at a government that “blames the excesses of the privileged on the poor”. Colourful and lively, over 20,000 people marched along iconic Princes Street with one clear message. There is a better way. http://www.unison-scotland.org.uk/

Deficit deniers? What about cuts deniers?

Nick Clegg was yesterday trying to rubbish the Institute of Fiscal Studies' evidence that, with the exception of the richest 2% of the population, the least well-off would be hit the hardest, and families with children would lose out the most due to ConDem cuts.

Does Green realise he's arguing against privatisation?

UNISONActive readers will not have missed the irony of Sir Phillip Green advising the government how to save money while quite legally depriving it of the very millions in taxes that could avoid cuts in the first place.

We said 11 years ago PFI was a bad deal - at last they’ve got it

 An Edinburgh Evening News ‘exclusive’ on 21 July 2010 says its investigation has found that the NHS will have to pay a total of £1.26 billion for the privately built Edinburgh Royal Infirmary - and still not own it. Clearly this investigation has taken a whole seven years because in August 2003, a UNISON Scotland briefing said the Consort PFI consortium was “earmarked to receive a cumulative £1.26 billion.... Consort will also benefit by inheriting the whole hospital building when the contract eventually expires.”

Selling Edinburgh off will come at great cost to us all

In an otherwise enlightening article on council funding and privatisation (Counting the cost of public sector cuts, News, July 27), Rory Reynolds spoils it when he says "the status quo is unsustainable". http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/opinion/Letters-Selling-Edinburgh-off-will.6446318.jp

Lockerbie: Is there truth? Is there compassion?

The politically charged blame game, feasting on whether a terminally ill man is not dying soon enough, shows no respect to the victims of Lockerbie, the sovereignty of the Scottish legal system or the concept of compassion. It betrays a political process based on a sincerity (if you can fake that, you’ve made it) that comes only from opinion polls. Followers masquerading as leaders.

Even Chambers of Commerce say cuts will harm recovery‏

It is clear that businesses are anticipating the planned reductions in public spending at a Scottish and UK level to have a dampening effect on the recovery", says the Scottish Chambers of Commerce in releasing their second quarter Business Survey results today.

A voice for social work in poetry?

John Stevenson reviews 'Dancing With Big Eunice - Missives from the frontline of a fractured society" by Alistair Findlay

In a world of guideline after guideline, key performance indicators, inspections and media savagery, social work these days can seem so distant from the human relationships that should be central to the job.

Then along came poetry.

Poetry?

Goldberg: I now have a million brothers and sisters - comrades too I hope..

It is always hard to write a report of Denis Goldberg speaking. You can rush at it in the height of the emotion or you can wait a bit and analyse. We've waited a bit.

There must be something that has half of the Scotland delegation at UNISON Conference 20101 unashamedly in tears. What is it?

Is it the straightforward honesty we treasure in Scotland, although we tend to approach it with a tad more bluntness?

Is it the knowledge that you are listening to someone who has given more to the cause than any of us will ever know?

Go back to your branches and organise for the fightback

UNISON Conference 2010: You get Conferences that inspire. Conferences that divide with destructive quasi-political infighting. And you get 2010.

A quiet and serious resolve characterised the contributions and responses as almost 3,000 delegates set out a range of strategies to prepare for the biggest attacks we have ever seen on our services, our pensions, our pay, our health and safety and our hard won rights and equalities.

It was time to get down to work and organising is the key.

Local government funding

UNISON Conference 2010: We are talking about services here Conference. Services relied on by people. People who pay their general tax, their council tax and are now paying higher charges on top to buy the services they need. 

Because that’s what happens when you freeze the Council Tax.

Flawed though it is, it is far fairer than forcing those in most need to pay the most in charges.

In Edinburgh, day care charges for 1500 pensioners almost doubled a few weeks ago.

NHS loses 4000 jobs as bankers get bonus for making a loss!

Tom Waterson

The NHS in Scotland is facing 4,000 job cuts as the SNP government plans a £270million cut in spending following a tight budget settlement earlier this year. And even further cuts are expected after the Westminster ConDem ‘emergency budget’ on 22 June with knock-on effects in Scotland over the next few years.

The Scottish Government has promised there will be no compulsory redundancies and have agreed a partnership group with the unions to scrutinise workforce plans, but that still leaves major concerns about and jobs and services.

Our City's Not For Sale

May Day 2010 Edinburgh, being the speaker after the comedian! Many years ago I was a semi-pro magician, believe it or not, and one of the key showbiz maxims was ‘never follow a comedian’. All those years and I’ve never learned. Mind you, there’s a lot of not-learning around as we run up to this election.

Workers Memorial Day Edinburgh

70% of workplace accidents are due to poor management of health and safety. This means deaths at work are avoidable. But the alarming cuts in public spending which all the main parties have been proposing can only result in more danger for people at work. 

At a time when business and other vested interests are campaigning for proper health and safety laws to be replaced by deregulation, with companies being allowed to carry out their own health & safety audits, trade unions need to ensure that these hard-fought for rights are not eroded when employers campaign against red tape.

In support of free music tuition in schools

STUC 2010: I thought a good way of demonstrating the importance of free music tuition in schools would have been to start off giving you a few bars on my trumpet – an instrument I almost learned to play at school. But then I thought it might not be the best advert for the service.

But that in fact is the point. You don’t have to be great at a musical instrument to gain all the enjoyment and benefits.

Edinburgh takes to streets to isolate Nazis

Thousands of people demonstrated in Edinburgh today peacefully under the 'Scotland United' banner to further humiliate the so-called English/Scottish Defence League's attempt to bring its message of hate to the city. While demonstrators from trade unions, faith groups, students and ordinary members of the public staged a peaceful protest through the city centre, less than 100 fascists were corralled in pubs by the police and sent home again humiliated, as they were in Glasgow in November.

On leaving Springwell House

Event to mark the children and families social work team leaving Springwell House Edinburgh: The lessons learned through the experience of a man of my age are twofold.

The first is that there is a time to stop wearing light coloured trousers.

The second is that reorganisations always come just when you are getting the current system right.

The chances are that the next reorganisation will come up with the novel idea of locally based generic social work teams, and we’ll all be back at Springwell again.

Burns: Revolutionary, internationalist, lover and poet

On a visit to a hospital the Prince of Wales goes up to a bed and asks the patient how he’s doing. The patient whispers “We sleekit cowerin, timourous beastie”. At the next bed, the patient answers, “A man’s a man for a’ that”. Puzzled, the Prince of Wales moves on to the next bed and the patient says, “My luve is like a red red rose”.

The royal visitor then asks the nurse “What’s going on? - “It’s the Burns unit sir”, she says.

Such is the fame of Robert Burns that people get that joke all across the English speaking world – and further.