(Tuesday 16 December 2008)
MALCOLM BURNS reviews the latest goings-on north of the border.Fat cats get all the cream
I WROTE a couple of weeks ago about the Scottish Water pay dispute. The publicly owned corporation imposed a below-inflation pay increase despite £1 billion in savings provided by the staff.Scottish Water executives claim that Finance Secretary John Swinney's public-sector pay policy doesn't allow them to give workers a bigger increase. Meanwhile, they pay themselves fat-cat salaries and bonuses rising far ahead of prices.
Labour MSP Des McNulty pointed out last week that new Scottish Water chief executive Richard Ackroyd was being paid £263,000 a year. More than even Barack Obama was McNulty's quip. More than 10 times the £23,000 average annual wage of the Scottish Water staff, I observe. And bonuses this year could push Ackroyd's pay beyond £400,000.
The water unions were due to meet Swinney today to see if there is a way in which he can apply the guidelines to allow the corporation to fund a fair pay increase from some of the billion or more which the staff have worked hard to save the organisation.
I don't know whether he will act. My guess would be not, in which case the unions, UNISON, Unite and GMB, have a balloted mandate to follow last month's one-day strike with further planned strike action around Scotland over the Christmas period.
Monkeys and organ grinders
THE reality facing tens and even hundreds of thousands of Scottish public-sector staff is the same. Paltry, below-inflation pay rises which have been arrived at after many months of negotiations and only sometimes marginally improved by dogged industrial action.It's been clear to the unions that the monkeys with whom they are forced to negotiate in councils and quangos are not grinding the organ of public-sector pay.
Last week, the Scottish Parliament finance committee took some interesting evidence on the public-sector pay system in Scotland which confirmed this view.
Scottish government Finance Directorate deputy director Alistair Brown has responsibility for public-sector pay policy. He set out the aims of the policy - increases should be "affordable and sustainable," there should be flexibility to suit the business needs of public bodies and policy should support pay that is "fair and non-discriminatory."
So far, so fair - in theory.
Comparing the entitlements of the public-sector executives with those of the workers, SNP veteran MSP and committee member Alec Neil argued that some of the former appear to be excessive.
"As you rightly said," he told Brown, "a key objective of the pay policy is fairness, but two completely separate pay policies seem to apply - one for people on the front line who are doing the work and another for those at the top of the tree. My point is that those at the top of the tree seem to be taking the taxpayer for a ride. It is no wonder that we have industrial relations problems in the public sector."
Then, Labour's ex-whip Jackie Baillie had the poor mandarin squirming when she exposed the bureaucracy and delays resulting from the Public Sector Pay Policy Unit's role in overseeing pay offers by the local government employers and the myriad quangos or non-departmental public bodies.
Unlike Brown, the trade unionists who gave evidence later in the session were models of clarity.
"We have lost any sense of fairness in public-sector pay," Eddie Reilly, Scottish secretary of Civil Service union PCS, told the committee.
"If we have one pay policy and one grading system," Reilly argued, "why do we have so-called negotiations in 22 or 40 areas to produce different pay systems for the same job levels in different areas? Surely, the activities of those employers could be reduced to a central bargaining unit so that the same unions could sit round one table and deal with one set of pay negotiations under one policy, with one grading system. That would deal with pay properly at the Scottish and UK levels."
It surely would. But it would also expose the organ grinders north and south of the border who are short-changing the taxpaying public by offering the fat cats the cream and low pay instead of fair pay to public-sector workers.
Dignity for Palestinians up for debate this week
THE very last item of business in the Scottish Parliament for this year will be a motion on Thursday from Labour MSP Pauline McNeill on "dignity for Palestinians."Last month, McNeill, who is convener of the Parliament's cross-party group on Palestine, was one of 11 European parliamentarians who sailed to Gaza with vital medical aid on a boat called Dignity from Cyprus in defiance of the Israeli blockade. She was joined by fellow MSPs Sandra White of the SNP and Lib Dem Hugh O'Donnell.
Congratulations to them all.
That was the third voyage of Dignity to challenge the siege of Gaza, which has become a permanent blockade and which has affected every aspect of Palestinian life to the point where they are now in receipt of the largest food aid programme in the world. There has been a fourth in the last week.
McNeill's motion expresses the concern of the Scottish Parliament about the impact of the blockade on ordinary Palestinians.
The denial of basic health care rights, the shortage of medicine and severe restrictions on leaving Gaza for referral treatment have resulted in many deaths.
The motion also supports the efforts of Edinburgh Direct Aid to send aid to Gaza and recognises that action by the international community to secure an end to the siege of Gaza and implement international law is key to encouraging long-term peace in the Middle East.
I hope and expect that the rest of the Scottish Parliament members pass this motion before they head off for their holidays.
You can find out more about the Dignity voyages and aid to Gaza at www.freegaza.org and www.edinburghdirectaid.org
Scottish supporters do this paper proud
KEEPING the Morning Star afloat is just as important as keeping the Dignity sailing the Med and breaking the blockade.The annual Morning Star bazaar in Glasgow which I enjoyed last Saturday is just one of the many ways in which readers and supporters help the paper. It used to be held in the Govan Unemployed Workers' Centre and migrated to the Annexe in Partick a few years ago.
It's the usual Christmas Fayre and jumble sale kind of event, with stalls and home baking. You can have a cup of tea while waiting to win the wheel of fortune or have a lucky dip on the tombola. As ever, the best thing that I came away with was a few jars of Mrs Ajam's Cape Curry paste, hand made to a secret hot recipe from South Africa by RMT man Stewart Hyslop, who always does a Cuba stall at Star events. But the home baking is always good too.
Elizabeth, my 10-year-old, spent a few days before making dozens of hand-painted paper holders in each of which she enclosed a teabag - a fairtrade one, yes, I think so - with a teapot or a Santa on the front and a little poetic message on the back to Santa or a far-off friend saying words to the effect of "Enjoy a cup of tea on me as I can't be with you at Christmas."
She sold a load of these teabag envelopes for 50p each. I have no idea where she gets her enterprising spirit from, but it certainly helped the cause a little.
The bazaar raised around £1,200, an amazing result from a simple and friendly event.
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