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):
- keeping the ‘no compulsory redundancy’ pledge
- in-housing public services
- 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
Use our email tool to send a message to your local councillors to ask them to sign the pledge.
Sign the petition to show that the public want all councillors to sign.
Next steps
A pledge is meaningless without action. We will be working with councillors closely to hold them to their word and to make our demands into reality.
We may protect against no compulsory redundancies, but we also need to ensure the redeployment process doesn’t become one with a Job Centre Plus approach that pushes workers into poorer jobs or out the door.
Unite continues to be at the forefront of the fight to stop privatisation and reverse it by bringing services in-house. Read about our in-housing campaign. Recent work includes:
- campaigning to get agency workers into full-time roles in Waste and Cleansing
- pushing for recruitment to trades roles and the creation of an in-house damp team in Housing Property
- advocating for bringing our IT services in-house, as our private provider continually fails to deliver.
As part of the Joint Trade Unions of Edinburgh Council, we are building up a campaign to demand more funding for local government from the Scottish Government, including campaigning for a tourist tax.
We will be keeping a close eye on council committees to make sure the councillors are making good on the pledge and fighting for council workers and public services.