Forty-one of 63 Councillors sign the unions’ Pledge for Public Services

Councillors support no compulsory redundancies and the fight against privatisation

Most councillors have now signed the Pledge for Public Services in support of the demands of the Joint Trade Unions of Edinburgh Council (Unite, Unison and the GMB):

  1. keeping the ‘no compulsory redundancy’ pledge
  2. in-housing public services
  3. demanding funding for local government.

Forty-one of the 63 councillors in Edinburgh have signed—all the Green, Labour and SNP councillors and independent councillor Ross McKenzie. No Lib Dem of Tory councillors have signed.

Check out our page on the Pledge for Public Services to see if your councillor has signed.

How you can help

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Unite members reject COSLA pay offer

84% vote to reject—now we prepare to strike

Unite’s consultative ballot results are in and 84% of members in local government across Scotland have voted to reject the pay offer. This sends a clear message to COSLA that this must be improved.

Thanks to all who voted. If you did not receive a ballot, check your contact details by logging into MyUnite or calling 0131 556 9676.

What happens next?

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Pledge for Public Services

This year’s City of Edinburgh Council budget meeting descended into farce as councillors voted for other parties’ budgets and ended up with a budget that most did not want and, if acted upon, could see compulsory redundancies and privatisations in our council.

Our branch reps and officials were first off the block to challenge both the Leader of the Council and Chief Executive at the council “thank you event” for workers, held at the Assembly Rooms the day after the budget farce . Both stated that the budget did not set council policy and that they were working to ensure that these items would not be acted upon. Despite these apparent assurances our branch issued a consultative ballot which last week returned a resounding 94% willingness for Industrial Action over these issues.

Unite the Union has been working on reversing privatisation for years. Recently our branch’s pledge to agency workers in Waste and Cleansing (given during the pay dispute in August 2022) has seen over 40 offered permanent council jobs and a programme of rolling recruitment enacted to reduce agency use in Waste and Cleansing to under 10%. We will be monitoring this closely as well as continuing our press for the remunicipalisation of many of the services outsourced over the past few decades.

Unite, GMB and unison are campaigning for Public Services in Edinburgh and hope this will see positive results for our city and the workers who serve it. A media release has been issued accordingly:

Edinburgh Joint Trade Unions launch campaign, calling on City of Edinburgh Council to give workers job security.

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COSLA pay offer 2023—vote now to reject!

Check your email for your ballot and reject this real-terms pay cut

Last week COSLA gave their pay offer for local government workers. The offer is yet another real terms pay cut—and a significant one at that as the cost of living continues to rise.

Unite have sent a consultative ballot out to all members in local government for you to have your say. This went by email today—texts and postal ballots will follow for members that don’t have an email on record.

We strongly recommend you reject this insult of an offer.

Read about the offer and the ballot below.

The offer

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Vote now to fight against redundancies and privatisation

Have you voted yet?

On Monday we opened a consultative ballot for all our members across the City of Edinburgh Council to see if you would take action over the

  • loss of the ‘no compulsory redundancy’ pledge
  • threat of outsourcing and privatisation.

Both of these are potential consequences of the Lib Dem budget that was passed by the Council on 23 February. Read our post on the budget for details.

This is a consultative ballot to check if members would take action. This is not an industrial action ballot, which would lead to action. Read about different ballots.

We need to show that we will not sit back and accept cuts to jobs and services, so vote as soon as you receive your ballot. The ballot closes on 2 April.

How you receive your ballot

Email

If we have an email on file for you, you will receive this by email.

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International Women’s Day 2023

On 8 March we celebrate International Women’s Day, when we highlight the fight for gender equality and advocate for the rights of women in the workplace, in the community and across society as a whole.

Key facts in the Council

69% of workers in the City of Edinburgh Council are women. This is 67% of local government employees and 78% of teachers.

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Council budget 2023

What happened, what it means for workers and how we will fight

On Thursday 23 February, Council met to agree the budget for 2023/24. With toxic tribalism the order of the day, councillors voted along party lines and it came down to three rounds of voting to agree a budget, with the Lib Dem budget being agreed. For the Housing Revenue Account, the administration budget motion was carried.

Read on for details of the day, what the budget means to you and how we are fighting back against it.

Watch the budget meeting

Read the key documents:

See the other budget papers.

Demonstration

Through every season the crowd of ragged-trousered philanthropists continued to toil and sweat at their noble and unselfish task of making Edinburgh run…

The day started with a strong demonstration outside the City Chambers, with far greater numbers than in recent years, where Unite, Unison, EIS, NASUWT, the Edinburgh TUC and community, political and activist groups stood together against further cuts.

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