The day the Glasgow police saluted Mandela

There will be thousands upon thousands of stories about Mandela today. Rightly, they will and should focus on the political legacy. But so many people mourning today will have forgotten the politics and the struggle, barely heard of them, or like Cameron, conveniently forgotten their university group's vile attacks on him.

But let me share something personal about the man. It was 1993, Glasgow, pissing rain. Thousands welcomed Nelson Mandela to Glasgow. A chance meeting with Lothian Region convener Keith Geddes and UNISON/NALGO general secretary Alan Jinkinson led to me being in the line-up to meet Mandela. I was in a red nylon hoodie and soaked to the skin.

The price of humanity and public service

#clutha When the helicopter came down on the pub in Glasgow I was about 800 yards away. I heard nothing. I saw nothing. But a few minutes later on the train the tweets started coming through. A sad end to a wonderful meal with treasured long-time comrades.

Such as is life these days, the conventional media were playing catch up with people on the ground who were already tweeting. It didn't take a genius to realise that, at the very least, hopes for those in the police helicopter must be dim. What must their families have been going through? What about the friends and relatives that knew their folk would be in that pub? The people celebrating a well-earned Friday. The locals in their usual seats.

Political awakening at the newsagent's

Our local newsagent today said the attack on unions was about creating a low wage economy. He praised UNISON for backing workers and not being afraid to speak up on Palestine.

Another customer chipped in on the low wage economy. “Why can’t people see that is what it is about? Forcing though a low wage, low skill economy”. He went on to extol the Scandanavian approach, creating quality jobs and taxes to fund good public services. “You get what you pay for”, he said.

Unions must focus on social justice in constitution debate

It is a bit of a leap to extrapolate that less intense opposition means Scottish trade unions are ‘shifting in favour of independence’. Nevertheless James Maxwell’s New Statesman article does, perhaps inadvertantly, put a finger on the difficulty trade unions face in getting their issues across when both referendum camps might be happier with a more simplistic debate.

Austerity and cuts: Why isn't everybody furious?

Speech to UNISON Edinburgh AGM 2013
Since this government came to power, this union and this branch have been banging out the message that there is a better way, there is an alternative to the cuts, to their privatisation, to their demonising of the unemployed and working poor, their demonising of young people, their labelling the elderly and disabled as scroungers, their pitiful argument that we can’t afford care for our most vulnerable.

Putting the dignity (and radicalism) back into social care

A UNISON seminar of members working in social care and home care has called for dignity for service users and dignity for the staff who serve them.
The call came 24 hours before UNISON warned that the home care system is in crisis following a Care Quality Commission Report into homecare services in England which found that as many as a quarter are failing to meet quality and safety standards.

Members from across the UK attending the seminar in Birmingham on 12 February heard harrowing stories of service users condemned to brief 15 minute visits to provide care, Alzheimer’s sufferers subjected to regular changes of carer and welfare cuts taking away the independence of disabled people.

They heard of the widespread exploitation of outsourced home care workers on zero hours contracts, paid on or less than the minimum wage, not paid or reimbursed for travelling between service users and having to do the job with precious little training.

Leadership and South Africa beyond Marikana

It’s one thing winning the revolution. It is another thing implementing its vision. That was the theme of veteran ANC activist Denis Goldberg at a meeting of ACTSA Scotland in Glasgow on Tuesday.
Billed as a speech about the Marikana massacre, it turned into a disarmingly honest and at times painful analysis of the challenges of building a fair and just South Africa in just 18 years after centuries of constitutional oppression.

Denis’s right to do that comes with provenance. Twenty two years in jail for fighting apartheid wins you that privilege. But that analysis is also a prerequisite to understanding Marikana.

Equal Pay Victory: Behind the Headlines

Equal pay hit the headlines big style last week culminating in Friday’s announcement that UNISON had won a settlement for 3,000 workers in Edinburgh. http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/
news/content/view/full/125431

As UNISON Scotland mounts an autumn recruitment campaign, what better advert is there for being a member of a union? But amidst the celebrations, it is worth taking a look at the years of work behind the headlines that brought a deal for these mainly low-paid women.

Organising for a future that works

Stephanie Herd

Organising to break the pay freeze, organising to protect our NHS and our public services and organising to turn back the vicious impact of ConDem policies on our members, on the poorest in society, on the disabled, elderly and our children. A daunting list of tasks but one UNISON’s National Conference was up for.
 

This year's conference was all about equality and social justice. It was about communicating, organising, campaigning to get our message to our members, prospective members and to the public at large. There is an alternative!

Neville Lawrence: ‘'UNISON has stayed with us'

Interview with Neville Lawrence before his moving speech to UNISON Conference on 21/6/12:
It's a question you dread asking Neville Lawrence. He must have been asked it a million times yet he answered with the thoughtful respect and honesty we've come to know over an inspirational and dignified 18 year campaign.
It is horrific enough for a parent to lose a child. To lose a child in the circumstances in which he lost Stephen is unthinkable. What keeps him going?

"To be honest, I don't know", said Neville. "When I came to this country I had the belief that if you were in trouble you would be helped... It was wrong that something can happen like this just because of the colour of someone's skin."

Celebrating 'Our City's Not For Sale'

May Day 2012 Rally speech from John Stevenson, UNISON City of Edinburgh Branch President.
Last year, and the year before, we came here saying ‘Our City’s Not For Sale’. Then it was an aspiration, now it’s a reality. We won. You won. But most of all we won together.

Adventures of an activist called Tom

Michael McGahey

As STUC Congress approaches I always reflect on the characters of the past and the bits of fun I remember in or around the movement over the years. So sit back and enjoy some unashamed name-dropping from a back-office publicist who happened to be in the right place at the right time – from time to time.
Not strictly the STUC but let's start with the biggest first. 1993, Glasgow, pissing rain. Thousands welcome Nelson Mandela. A chance meeting with Lothian Region convener Keith Geddes and UNISON general secretary Alan Jinkinson led to me being in the line-up to meet Mandela. I was in a red nylon hoodie and soaked to the skin.

I’ll never forget Mandela’s moving words, full of political significance, as he shook my hand. “You are very wet”, he said.

Vote of thanks: Mike Kirby STUC President 2012

What can we say about Mike Kirby?

Or as we affectionately know him in UNISON – The Prince of Darkness.

The STUC must be the only organisation that has the namesake of a Japanese Anime cartoon character as its President. I quote from Wikipaedia...

Reclaiming the referendum

Gordon Mckay

We need to recognise the "Scottish or British?" debate as the blind alley it is. Instead we should be articulating the Scotland we want to see, writes UNISON Scotland NEC member Gordon Mckay in the Morning Star on the day UNISON’s Scottish Council ran workshops on that very issue. http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/117784 

UNISON’s role in the constitutional convention that created devolution and the Scottish Parliament was significant. It is also significant that it was a Parliament that was created and not an ‘assembly’. A settlement where everything was devolved except for key reserved powers, rather than the other way around.

Scottish Labour – redefining core values?

The weekend’s Scottish Labour Conference heard UNISON seek to redefine the party’s focus onto the basic issues of unfairness and inequality, somehow lost in the normal anodyne New Labour media-speak.

Our City's Note For Sale hustings

Intro for Central Ward by election hustings Edinburgh City Chambers 15 August 2011: A very warm welcome to these hustings organised by council unions as part of our campaign that says ‘Our City’s Not for Sale’.

It is also part of the ground-breaking Mobilise anti-cuts festival being held at Belford Road this week. Tickets for all Mobilise events are in big demand so log on to mobilisefestival.co.uk  or pick up a leaflet tonight so you don’t miss out.

Dealing with the symptoms and causes of unrest

By Alan Stanton - Firefighters - High Road Tottenham

In the face of public fear, anger and retribution, the left faces an uphill struggle to articulate the way forward from the unrest in our cities. The demonising of young people in general has led to a fear of groups of them at the best of times, let alone when things get out of control. The fact that many of those involved appear not to have been so young barely gets a mention.

It is hard to get a hearing for the causes of what is happening when people are so caught up in the symptoms. It is even harder when anger is fuelled by the political right in a populist diversion of attention from the policies that led so predictably to some kind of explosion.

Beware the politics of the last atrocity

We are all, rightly, Norwegian today. The inhumanity of the events is overwhelming - only tempered by the humanity of the collective response. But as the media and the commentariat struggle for new things to say, the issue of the ‘need’ for a debate on the ‘problem’ of race and immigration keeps cropping up. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/25/uk-norway-multiculturalism-idUSLNE76O02G20110725  

Where did that need come from? Surely not from the self-indulgent savagery of a deluded ultra-right narcissist. Surely we do not give the debate credibility because he turned to senseless slaughter.

Pensions: Speech to Edinburgh TUC Rally on PCS strike day

I’m proud to be here from UNISON to bring a message of solidarity to the workers on strike today. You are leading the way today in the face of the most indecent, vicious and self-serving attacks on our people in a generation. And you take on that fight in the face of many enemies.

Conference Review: Everybody agrees it was consensus

UNISON National Conference 2011: Organisation, dispelling myths, winning hearts and minds to defend over 60 years of a civilised society that our people fought for and won.

That’s what this week was and rightly should have been about. Consensus on the need to defend the founding principles of our NHS. As Bevan said, it will be there so long as we have the faith to defend it.

Consensus on the need to defend care of the most vulnerable; the welfare state; education for all, not just the few; a voluntary and community sector that enhances rather than competes, underpinned by properly resourced public services.