The shifting politics of Scotland

First published in the Morning Star on 30 December 2014:
It’s been a quiet time in Scotland recently, apart from the Smith Commission on devolution powers, a new first minister, her programme for government, SNP mass rallies, a Labour leadership election, a shadow cabinet reshuffle, the Rangers manager handing in his notice, and the first fall of snow.

I mention the football story because there are parallels with Labour’s situation.

The Smith Commission and referendum romanticism

It is time to get over the passion and rhetoric about the Smith Commission and get down to looking at what each power – and all the powers collectively – will bring in the way of control and, critically, responsibilities.

That needs to start by asking what we need the power for. Do we want to control corporation tax just to cut it? Do we want to control income tax so that we can leave it alone just as we have since 1999? Do we want fairer local government funding that boosts local democracy or centralised control to avoid the vexed question of the council tax? Do we just want the powers - and the risks that also go with them - without a progressive vision of what to do with them?

Giving Scotland a reason to back Labour for social justice

First blogged on UNISONActive on 1/12/14 As the dust still swirls after the referendum, the challenge is to bring the focus back to the Scotland we want to see now. Of course the ‘neverendum’ campaign will continue but at some point we will have to address what we do with the powers we have now and will gain soon.

It's political, not constitutional change we need

#indyref They say a Yes vote is a vote for freedom for Scotland. If freedom means casting off your chains, then it's as good a reason to vote No. Voting no to the chains that will tie down our economy. Voting no to the defeatism on the left that chains us into believing independence is the only way to win the policies of social justice. Voting no to the chains of insularity and nationalism.

Most of us have more in common with workers in Newcastle and Manchester than with bankers, big business and the landed gentry in Scotland. We have more in common with the Londoners who elected 20 Labour councils this year than the 900,000 people in Scotland who voted Tory, Lib Dem, UKIP and BNP in 2010. Social change will not come merely from reinforcing a squiggly line drawn north of Carlisle and Berwick.

Gaza: 'We march for three things. The children, the children, the children.'

Princes St Edinburgh (c) John Stevenson

#Gaza Edinburgh’s Princes Street came to a halt again this week when marchers stopped and sat for two minutes silence to remember the dead in Gaza. Even onlookers respected the silence and applauded as the demonstrators set off again for Bute House, the official residence of the First Minister of Scotland.

On the 90 minute march, people carried a card, each with the name of one of the 2,000 Palestinians, almost 400 of them children, killed by Israeli forces. It was a poignant and powerful way of highlighting the human cost.

Support for Palestine does not equate to anti-semitism

First published in the Morning Star on 23 July 2014 https://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-c9a5-support-for-palestine-does-not-equate-to-anti-semitism-1

We're caught up in our internal debate in Scotland as to whether independence or devolution is the best strategy to deliver social justice at home. 

 

Whatever the result, the world outside will be the same and, especially at times like these, we must resist looking inwards at the expense of our long and proud history of internationalism.

Asking difficult referendum questions is essential

Despite some recent press coverage, UNISON's position on the referendum remains one of challenging both sides of the referendum debate on how their plans will create social justice, bring an end to austerity, poverty and health inequality. We want to know what they will do about building social cohesion, a more equal society and a world without nuclear weapons.

The referendum differs from the devolution campaign of the 1990s. There is no 'settled will of the Scottish people'. There is a divide. So, more important that taking positions of Yes or No, is pushing home the difficult questions for both camps and getting answers for our members.

And we need to be clear what the camps are...

Glasgow Girls and inspiration to campaign in UNISON

I challenge anyone not to have been moved by the Glasgow Girls story on BBC Scotland last week. The way that these young women, girls at the time, campaigned, organised and made a real difference to how asylum seeker children were treated, was nothing short of inspirational. (Still available for 6 days at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b049n0js/glasgow-girls)

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.

Local authorities on the brink

Published in Morning Star 18/3/14:
I once received a letter which said: "Like you, we believe local services are more important than frozen poultry."

I was mildly puzzled because I couldn't recall ever having made such a profound analysis.

It turns out it was a reply to something a colleague had sent out contrasting the local paper's silence about 1,500 council job cuts with its campaign against 547 job losses at a chicken factory.

Currency options: the facts behind the debate

The major hoo-ha about the pound in an independent Scotland has generated a mass of confusing debate. Thankfully the STUC’s ‘A JustScotland’ paper at last shines some light on what the real currency issues are.

What is clear is that no option for currency is without problems.  Here we try to distil some of the issues from the STUC report.

When looking at these options it is important to keep in mind that the status quo (without independence or enhanced devolution) brings its own problems and restrictions too.

STUC independence study everyone should read

The Herald newspaper has, well, heralded the STUC's 'A Just Scotland' comprehensive analysis of the key referendum issues. http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/union-study-on-union-everyone-should-read.23486896

"It bypasses the entrenched positions, debunks the overblown rhetoric and provides a realistic assessment of various possible outcomes following a Yes or No vote", writes political editor Magnus Gardham. "Refreshingly, it comes at the whole question of independence with a genuinely open mind."

On social justice, currency, Europe and economic policy, the Herald says the report "doesn't make entirely happy reading for either side. That alone should be enough to commend it to all open-minded, undecided or downright confused voters."
See the full report at http://www.stuc.org.uk/news/1053/stuc-publish-second-just-scotland-report

People's Assembly Scotland Launch

Speech at launch of the People's Assembly Scotland 25 January 2014
Ricky Tomlinson did a great job in rousing the anger in this hall against austerity. But is anybody like me in wondering why people we represent and organise out there are not more angry?

Why so many don’t think there is an alternative to austerity?

crannachan

Serves 24 in small portions

Approx 2k /4-6lb raspberries or mixed berries

100 fl oz/ 4 pint double cream

8 tablespoons good quality honey

8 tablespoons single malt whisky.

450g or 15 oz of pinhead oatmeal.

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.