:-( a bad day

BBC NEWS | Scotland | STUC suspends general secretary: "The general secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress has been suspended from his post in the organisation, it has emerged.

The STUC said the move had been taken to exercise a 'duty of care' towards Bill Speirs, who it is understood has been unwell after suffering stress."

the herald has a fuller but not happier story:

STUC chief suspended on full pay after weeks of sick leave

STUC chief suspended on full pay after weeks of sick leave

TOM GORDON and ALAN MacDERMID

September 08 2005

THE leader of Scotland's trade union movement was yesterday suspended on full pay, with its general council citing a duty of care to him and also to other staff as the reason for the move.
Bill Speirs, who has been general secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress for the past seven years, and a leading figure in the Labour movement for more than 25, last night claimed his colleagues had failed to inform him of the highly unusual suspension before The Herald contacted him.
The 53-year-old said he was subsequently told: "It is not a disciplinary matter, rather a question of duty of care."
Speaking at his terraced home in the south side of Glasgow, Mr Speirs said he had been off work ill for the past three weeks. He said: "I have been under a good deal of stress lately because of the pressure of work, and I am hoping to have some kind of stress management programme in place when I get back.
"The workload has increased tremendously over the past few years because of the increased membership, demands on the political side arising from devolution, and the STUC's move to a new headquarters . . . I have had 117 evening meetings in the past year."
According to colleagues, Mr Speirs has occasionally been off work with health problems throughout this year, and made a phased return during the summer. But he had not recovered, and general council members said they were forced into the extreme measure of suspending an unwell employee with great regret.
A statement by John Keenan, chairman of the STUC general council, said the administration and general purposes committee had met yesterday and had the authority to deal with such cases. He said that "as a consequence of its obligation . . . to exercise a duty of care to the general secretary, the organisation itself and the STUC staff, it was decided to suspend the general secretary, Bill Speirs, on full pay".
Mr Keenan said the decision was reported to the general council at its scheduled meeting later yesterday morning, and the senior union representatives who run the STUC rubber-stamped it at that meeting.
A general council member spoke about the concern "for a considerable time" over Mr Speirs's ill-health. "There's hardly anybody on the general council who would not call themselves a friend of Bill Speirs," said the official.
"But things have reached a stage where every attempt to try and assist him has failed. It's hellish for him. There's no-one in the STUC, either staff or official, who is not sick at heart."