IWW Scotland

The next Scottish Assembly is on Sunday, March 23rd from 1:15pm to 6:30 at the Friend’s Meeting House in Glasgow.

The Summer Assembly is an all-scotland IWW dayschool and organising event, open to both IWW members and non-members. This year we have workshops on:

* Organsing your workplace
* Getting the message out
* Problems and solutions at work
* The National Blood Service and what you can do to save it

There will also be an introductory session on what the IWW is, and a discussion session on what our tactics should be for IWW growth within Scotland. A late lunch will be provided, and a social is planned for afterwards.

If you have any questions either leave them as a comment here, or email iwwscotland@gmail.com

From the Greenock Telegraph: http://www.greenocktelegraph.co.uk/article.php?sec=1&id=16826

Hospital Workers Back IRH Strike

by Lorraine Tinney

HOSPITAL workers at Inverclyde Royal have voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action over car parking charges.

A staggering 87 per cent of staff across Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board said they would walk out if tolls aren’t scrapped. Unison held a postal ballot to crank up pressure on health secretary Nicola Sturgeon to reverse her decision to charge staff up to £7 a day for using hospital car parks.

The strike vote means that up to 1,000 union members at Inverclyde Royal including nurses, porters and lab technicians could bring the hospital to a standstill.

Raymond O’Donoghue, unison divisional convener in Inverclyde, said: “This shows the strength of opinion over charges that so many workers would go on strike.

“Staff do not want this and the public certainly don’t want it.

“It is very hard to get people to vote in postal ballots and there was a 40 per cent turnout which means around 6,000 voted which is phenomenal.”

But he stressed that patients wouldn’t suffer if staff did walk out.

He said: “We would take sensible action – we are not in the business of hurting patients. Strike action is always a last resort.”

Unison bosses also collected 1,000 printed letters signed by staff and the public in Inverclyde objecting to proposals and took them through to Edinburgh yesterday to hand over in person to the health secretary.

A spokesperson for Greater Glasgow and Clyde, said: “It is disappointing that Unison would threaten patient care by balloting for strike action.

“Unison nationally is already part of a Government and NHS led review of hospital car parking across Scotland and it therefore seems inappropriate timing to ballot for local strike action. This however, is a matter for the local branch of Unison.

“It would be interesting to find out exactly who has been balloted in this case as it appears that many staff, based on sites where parking charges are already in effect, have not been balloted.

“Our primary objective is to ensure that patients, visitors and staff who need a car to carry out vital NHS duties can park at our hospitals when they need to. As an employer we have no obligation to offer all staff free parking without any constriction.

“NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is fully complying with national Scottish guidance to NHS Boards on car parking charges and we are doing nothing different from other NHS organisations faced with the same problems on their busy hospital sites.”

Clydeside GMB has began distributing the following posters to raise attention to the ongoing struggles of hospital staff who are being charged extortionate fees as a result of a swingeing decision by Greater Glasgow Healthboard to charge hospital staff and patients alike for parking at hospitals. The money being earned from the parking charges is not going into funding better public transport to hospitals or supporting staff to get to and from work, and is not specially earmarked for a specific purpose or for investment. The Healthboard has been open about the fact that it sees this as just another source of revenue. Despite a government review being ordered into the decision and a consultative ballot on the issue the Healthboard has stated it has no intention of dropping the charges. This is a tax on hospital workers, and the IWW aims to support workers fighting the charges by highlighting the issue and trying to bring others to register their support and get involved. We all benefit from the NHS. Attacks on hard working healthcare workers are attacks on the NHS itself. They must be stopped, for all of our benefit. An injury to one is an injury to all.

Healthcare Workers (IU 610 workers), Clydeside GMB.

car-bank2.pdf

parking-tax2.pdf

>> Printable fliers in a pdf <<