We must strive to reach beyond our fellow activists

First published in the Morning Star on 15/8/17: The value of many public service workers’ pay has plummeted by £4,000 since 2010. Tens of thousands of jobs have gone from public services in Scotland. The need for services hasn’t gone away but the jobs that provide them have.

Those left behind struggle to carry on with fewer resources. It is sad to see workers who used to pride themselves in their service looking increasingly demoralised. No wonder there is a queue when it comes to voluntary redundancies.

So why aren’t public service workers furious? Why did not enough members even vote in Unison’s Scottish local government pay ballot to reach the Tories’ cynical 50% threshold?

Union organised trams roll out in Edinburgh

The first trams for 60 years rolled out in Edinburgh this morning with 95 per cent of their workers members of a union.

The success was recognised by the STUC in April when it awarded Unite reps at Lothian Buses the first STUC organising award. The reps were praised for helping tram colleagues set up union structures long before the first passenger was carried.

Unions and the union

The need for change while avoiding the danger of over-reaction to the seismic shift in party control in the Scottish Parliament was well recognised by UNISON’s Scottish Committee meeting in Glasgow on Tuesday.

Given the unions were the only voices really promoting a ‘better way’ than cuts in jobs and services, it wasn’t hard to focus on ‘business as usual’ in maintaining that campaign irrespective of who was in power. We’d have had to do it even if Labour had won.

But that didn’t mean there was no room for change. How we organise, how we recruit and how we engage activists – not least Scottish Committee members – in leading forward policies and action, were all part of the discussions.