in housing – Unite CEC Branch

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):

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

Housing Property—make your voice heard

Work in Housing Property? Take our survey

We are looking to understand the views of workers in Housing Property. The service has undergone significant changes in recent years, with impacts on terms and conditions and how work is organised. We want to know what you think of the arrangements and what you would like to see done better—and how it could be done better.

The survey is open to all workers in Housing Property, members and non-members.

Take the Housing Property survey

Current work in Housing Property

In-housing

Budget Day demo—united in our call to invest in Council workers and jobs

On Thursday, we braved the chill and snow to demonstrate outside the City Chambers in solidarity with fellow trade unionists, activists and concerned citizens as the Council met to approve next year’s budget.

Read the budget papers and watch a webcast of the budget meeting, which includes the full deputations summarised below.

The Council have delivered a balanced budget for 2022/23, thanks to an underspend in 2021/22 and a 3% Council Tax rise, however the forecast for the years following looks bleak, with a gap in 2023/24 of around £55m with this gap increasing around £25m each year thereafter. The Council have said there must be a ‘robust savings plan’—which we know by now, translates to more cuts.

The demonstrators sought to raise awareness of the impact of cuts and call for measures to tackle the crises we face today that will be worsened by further cuts and by failing to change how the Council delivers services. We need a shake up and we need it now.

In-housing of our services

Unite has long advocated that council services be delivered by the council workforce and that our council ends the practice of out-sourcing our public services to private companies. Imagine then our astonishment to discover (2 days before the council meeting to give approval) that the council’s Facilities Management repairs contract was to be given to two massive multi-national companies (Mitie and Skanska).

We believe that our 200 or so members in Housing Property (joiners, plumbers, Electricians etc), augmented by additional craft operatives and apprentices, could do a huge amount of that work and help keep some of the £180m to be paid to these corporate giants in Edinburgh and for its citizens.