Keep public services in-house – better for staff, better for service users.

Jim McFarlane
Jim McFarlane

#uNDC16 UNISON will continue its fight to keep public services in-house and set out a range of measures to support branches to fight privatisation and out-sourcing.

Where services are provided by the private or not for profit sector, UNISON will press for socially responsible procurement, the living wage and trade union recognition.

Speakers spoke of their own experiences in their branches of campaigning to keep services in-house.

Dundee’s Jim McFarlane, supporting, described a dispute in his authority where the council has used the threat of out-sourcing to try to change the working patterns for social care workers.

“This was overwhelmingly rejected at a mass meeting,” said Jim, adding that attempts to negotiate changes to the proposed rotas, in good faith, had been rejected by the employer. The members had offered to trial a rota that they had come up with to meet the needs of the service. However the management response had been to text the social care workers to ask if they were interested in going self employed.

Jim said, “Inspection after inspection shows that council provision of these services is better, staff are better paid with better conditions of service and service users get a better service.

“We should demand investment in social care and the workers, not cuts that drive down security and service quality.”

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