On Thursday 30th June education, public sector and civil service workers from four unions will go on strike over pensions and service cuts.
In Edinburgh the workers at the forefront of this strike are Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) members working in job centres and government departments. The PCS have made it clear that as well as taking this action to defend attacks on already meagre pensions they are also striking “for the alternative to the Con-Dem government's savage cuts in public services and jobs”.
This aligns Thursday’s strike action firmly with the interests of social care workers, service users and their parents and carers. Social care services are being hit hard by the government and local authorities’ cost cutting and privatisation drive subjecting some of our society’s most vulnerable people to sub standard care and in some cases, neglect.
In Edinburgh workers, service users and campaign groups successfully fought off attempts by the Council to sell off vital care and support services to poor quality, low cost companies with questionable track records. Since then however the existing providers of these services have been forced to absorb substantial cuts in funding that are beginning to impact on the quality of care they provide. Support workers are being cut back and the use of low cost, unqualified causal staff increased leading to vulnerable people with severe disabilities receiving a poorer quality of service from staff they don’t know. Pay and conditions of the care and support workers that perform arguably one of the most important roles in our society are being cut back. Union representatives at an Edinburgh provider of services for people with learning disabilities recently calculated that in 5 years their wages have lost 10% of their value. This is not an exception – in many other organisations without worker representation the situation is worse.
This is against the backdrop of recent high profile revelations about low cost, private care companies such as the neglect suffered by elderly residents of the Elsie Inglis home here in Edinburgh or Southern Cross Healthcare, the company that put the care of thousands of service users at risk by selling its care home properties for private profit.
As we suffer the double pain of falling income and poorer services so do the people we support.While cutbacks endanger the support services used by adults with mental health problems and physical or learning disabilities their income is also being threatened as the Government seeks to cut 20% of the benefits they receive. The scrapping of Disability Living Allowance and allowing private contractors, rather than medical specialists, to assess claimants’ eligibility for its replacement further demonstrates the Government’s intent to make the most vulnerable in society pay for the excesses of bankers and politicians.
This point brings us back to the PCS workers taking part in Thursday’s strike. Although these workers are walking out over attacks on their jobs, pensions, pay and conditions they are also taking a stand for disabled people on the benefits they administer and for all of us suffering the pain of service and job cuts. The PCS articulate very well that the Government’s excuses for cuts and privatisation are not justified. Businesses and wealthy individuals evade or avoid £100 billion in tax every year and the UK Government holds £850 billion in bailed out banking assets – more than the total national debt.
On Thursday workers from the PCS union UK wide and the education unions in England and Wales will strike the biggest blow so far in the fight against the worst attack on the welfare state since its creation. It is essential that workers everywhere stand beside them but especially social care staff, service users and their parents and carers. We stand to lose as much as anyone.
See below for full details of Edinburgh picket lines and rallies that you can join on the 30th.
Danny Oliver
Edinburgh Support Workers’ Action Network (SWAN)
www.swanedinburgh.org.uk
Edinburgh Support Workers' Action Network (SWAN) is a network of care and support workers set up to fight the budget cuts and competitive tendering being imposed by Edinburgh Council which threaten our jobs and our service-users' quality of care.
PCS Picket Lines – 6.45 - 10.15am - Thursday 30th June 2011
Victoria Quay (Leith)
St Andrews House (Regents Road)
Registers of Scotland (Meadowbank)
Saughton House
Student Awards Agency (Gyleview)
Forestry Commission (Corstorphine)
High Riggs Job Centre (Tollcross)
HMRC (Revenue): Haymarket House
National Museum of Scotland (Chambers St)
Sheriff Court (Chambers St)
PCS Rally at the Mound 10.15am - Thursday 30th June 2011
Edinburgh TUC Rally at the Mound 5.30pm - Thursday 30th June 2011
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