Solid support for Glasgow strike

Glasgow council's 21 community service supervisors remain on indefinite strike. The strike is rock solid as it enters the fourth week.

Brian Smith

The council remains intransigent and is still refusing to withdraw the pay cuts the strikers face under their "service reform" proposals. The strikers and their trade union, Unison, are in favour of improving the service and have suggested ways in which the service could be improved. But under the council's plans, some of the workers face pay cuts of over Ł2,000.

The workers supervise serious, violent and repeat offenders who have been given community service as an alternative to prison. They work on their own every day with five offenders in placements undertaking gardening, home decoration, joinery or environmental projects.

The council wants the workers to undertake additional duties whilst cutting their pay. Yet those workers doing the same job with offenders who are in individual work placements will be on the higher grade that the strikers are demanding.

At a time when the eyes of the public and the parliament are on how alternatives to prison can be improved you would think that the largest provider of those services in Scotland would be making serious efforts to resolve an indefinite strike. But no, Glasgow council is hoping the strikers will just go away.

Glasgow Unison is stepping up its support for these strikers and is now considering how to escalate the action into other areas of Glasgow's criminal justice services.

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In The Socialist 28 January 2009:

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