Monday, 2 June 2008

Around Scotland - Monday 2 June 2008

Published in the Morning Star
(Monday 02 June 2008)


MALCOLM BURNS on the latest goings-on north of the border.

60 years of good health

AMONG the Bills and motions on the table at the Scottish Parliament congratulating the members' local football teams on playing football and their local businesses on winning things like the "Retail - Fruit or Vegetable Category Award" in the Scotland Food and Drink Excellence Awards - I'm not kidding - there will be debated a motion this Wednesday from Bill Butler MSP celebrating an event of universal importance - the 60th anniversary of the National Health Service.

"This is about celebrating the greatest acheivement of the most radical Labour governent in history," the left-wing Labour MSP for Glasgow Anniesland tells me.

Butler's motion calls on the Scottish parliament to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the NHS, launched on July 5 1948 by Labour minister for health Aneurin Bevan.

Recognising the continuing relevance of the principles that Bevan established for a socialised health service, funded through general taxation and free to all at the point of need, the resolution demands that "all citizens, trade unions and politicians should remain true to the founding principles of the NHS."

Clearly one of Butler's aims is to identify the NHS as a Labour issue, but his motion has been signed by a few SNP members - though, notably, no Tories.

"Just like 1947, when they voted against Bevan's Bill in Westminster," Butler reminds me.

The attempt by the SNP to rain on the Labour NHS parade in the debate on Wednesday is an amendment which "welcomes the Scottish government's efforts to reintroduce free prescriptions, beginning with the reduction in costs introduced on April 1 2008, as keeping with the spirit of the NHS that Aneurin Bevan helped found."

But it's hard to see why anyone, far less Bill Butler, would disagree with the SNP amendment anyway.

"Free health care is one of the pillars, the basis of a socialist society," Butler says.

"The NHS and its staff improved the treatment and care of the people of Britain immeasurably. We must never go back to the unacceptable conditions before the NHS was established. And now we need to look to the future and strive continually to improve our health service."

Butler's motion lays down a marker for politicians of whatever party to support the socialist principles of the NHS.

Perhaps just as important to the future of the NHS in Scotland will be the support that he has been gathering for his radical proposal to introduce democratic representation on health boards.

Pension pressure at parliament

Meanwhile, SNP MSP Keith Brown is currently seeking signatures from other MSPs for his motion supporting the campaign by the Scottish Pensioners' Forum for a decent basic state pension.

Brown's motion notes that most parties campaigned in the 2005 Westminster election on a platform of restoring the link between pensions and earnings and calls for the British government, which has responsibility for this issue, to restore the link "substantially before 2012."

The Scottish Pensioners' Forum would welcome a similar move in the Welsh Assembly to keep pressure on Westminster. Any takers among our numerous AM readers?

Public sector set for a summer of strife

The summer of discontent is gathering pace. Last week, UNISON started to ballot 850,000 members in England and Wales over industrial action against the below-inflation pay offer.

And it looks as if 100,000 Scottish council workers will not be far behind.

UNISON, Unite (T&G) and GMB had submitted a claim for 5 per cent or £1,000 a year, whichever was the greater, plus increased annual leave. The Scottish local government employers' group CoSLA responded with an offer of 2.5 per cent a year for the next three years, with no reopener clause.

A UNISON conference in Glasgow on Thursday last week heard that a consultation exercise over the pay offer received from CoSLA had resulted in an 80 per cent rejection rate from members throughout Scotland. As yet, there has been no response from the employers.

UNISON Scottish local government group chairwoman Stephanie Herd told the conference: "For our low-paid members, this offer represents an increase of 46p an hour after three years. It is time that CoSLA realised that members are serious about the unacceptable nature of this offer. We will be balloting our members over July, urging them to vote and to vote yes."

UNISON, along with GMB and Unite (T&G), has also agreed to establish a joint group to co-ordinate the trade unions' programme of action. Meanwhile, I hear that Scottish civil servants represented by PCS are likely to be following suit as their pay offer remains unacceptably low.

High price for victims of Stockline disaster

IT WAS one of the worst industrial accidents in Scotland, killing nine people and injuring 33 others.

And it became a cause celebre for campaigners who believe that employers have a responsibility to guarantee that people are safe at work.

The struggle to get justice for the victims of the explosion at the ICL/Stockline plastics factory in Maryhill, Glasgow, four years ago has been led from the front by the Scottish TUC.

A major victory was winning consent for a public inquiry, which is due to begin under Lord Gill on July 2.

But now it looks as though the families of the victims could face means-testing if they want to be represented at that inquiry.

"The families are totally dismayed at the decision to apply means-testing to assess if they will have access to legal representation at the public expense," says Scottish TUC assistant secretary Ian Tasker.

And he has slammed SNP Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill for failing to meet a commitment made to the families to take the issue up with the British government.

I hope he does - and successfully. The cost of justice should not fall on the victims.

A new date for trades councils

I HEAR that the STUC much-postponed Trade Union Councils annual conference and the Communities Conference which was due to happen in tandem with it are now being scheduled for the first week in September instead of this month.

That would be Friday September 5 for the Communities Conference and Saturday September 6 for the Trade Union Councils.

Hopefully they'll go ahead then and the grass-roots voices will once more be heard loud and clear in the corridors of Scottish trade union power!




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