The apex of the U
There’s a remarkable piece in today’s Times about Stefan Cross, the lawyer working for the women in the Glasgow City Council equal-pay dispute. (For example it’s over 1500 words long but the word “Labour” doesn’t appear a single time, despite the party having controlled the council for the entire 20 years or so the dispute covers.)
The most interesting passage, though, is this one.
Because the story reveals that the GMB, an ultra-loyalist Labour and Unionist trade union, did absolutely everything in its power to obstruct and hamper the women’s claims until the spring of 2017, at which point the union experienced a Damascene conversion and threw their weight fully behind the women and against the council.
If only there’d been some fundamental alteration in the nature of the council around a year and a half ago which could explain such a “complete cultural change” in the GMB’s attitude and enthusiasm for equality, eh readers?
It’s as transparent as it is shameful, and if even the likes of Ian Smart are baulking at going along with it then SLab is well and truly fucked.
Ugh!
This will of course be carefully managed by the regimes Newspapers and TV companies.
The Unions and British Labour are making fools of the poor women in this dispute.
Words definitely fail.
They think they can be so blatant about this because the MSM won’t report their subterfuge.
However, most of Scotland has now moved outside the cosy Labour-Union-BBC-MSM bubble.
Only the most politically unaware folks and blinkered hardcore BritNats won’t see through it.
British Nationalism comes first. Then the Labour Party. Then the interests of the MPs and MSPs. Then the sponsors (Trade Unions). Then the MEMBERS of the Labour Party/Trade Unions….the rest of you should just be grateful that we are there to abstain whenever required.
Remember it was a Labour Party that….takes credit when it goes well and assigns blame when it doesn’t
The BBC/STV etc will be all over this as its in the public’s interest to do so………………. oh wait.
The Britnat media’s failure to report this marks them out as massive massey fergusons. The same goes for the GMB and EIS leadership.
Having been involved in Unions when the equal pay act came out the problem was that they were overwhelmingly male orientated and the male workers frankly were against equal wages for women. Mainly because of the assumption that employers would be keener on male wages being dropped more than women’s wages increased. If it’s taken an SNP government to be in power and an SNP council to be in power to move the unions to action that’s actually a good thing regardless of the politics behind it. Maybe the MSM needs to now interview these unions and ask why the situation in England is still in the fossil era. The SNP should be congratulated for being the enabler for this long running shame on the trade union movement coming to an end hopefully.
I see another union out in Glasgow today marching, the EIS want 10% for their members.
How they justify the 10% is beyond me the figure appears unreasonable possibly intentionally to cause a dispute.
Teachers should be paid well especially competent ones. I know that all teachers are not competent and their employers cannot easily remove the useless ones.
The EIS need to be very careful comparisons may be made with their counterparts in England where the pay is lower than Scotland.
Of course newly qualified doctors start at £23000 ish, just saying.
Suffice to say if the various unions get their way we will have British Nationalist Labour running things in Scotland how would Labour justify higher salaries in Scotland for teachers and nurses etc?
They could not and would not therefore the Scottish employees will have to fall in line with the, lower paid, English folk.
To quote Hugh Gaffney “Cave quid volunt”.
Just kidding he didn’t actually say that.
British nationalism relies on lies and deceit. That’s why British nationalism and its so-called united kingdom will fail – and deservedly so.
Could this be printed out and be handed to every woman (and man) on their next pocket line?
The most annoying aspect of this story, for me anyway, is when supposed Scottish nationalists (aka useful idiots) are against anyone pointing to the blatant hypocrisy of the Labour party. The idea seems to be that criticising Labour/GMB is the exact same as criticising the women who these cynical, hypocritical, lying opportunists staunchly opposed for the last decade.
I don’t agree.
There is absolutely no need for anyone to uncritically support the false friends of these women.
While these folk are striking on instuction from their unions does it never occur to them to have a look at their union reps finances and perhaps where they live and how they are in the positions they are
Some of these union reps don’t even live in *Britain* they live in entirely other countries with entirely other lifestyles where the few pounds an hour folk are striking for these same reps spend on a coffee but the poorer paid workers who are being conned out of their subs are paying for it
Unions used to be workers defending other workers, that’s not even close to what’s happening now, Unions have created their own planet in a distant galaxy far far away from the workers then employ their Death Star to create and destroy the rebellion simultaneously
It’s all win win for the Unions whoever loses, because workers never win, if they did there’d be no need for the self invented Unions and that would never do
Dan Huil says:
I agree. It’s contrived and unstable. It exist only as a construct to serve some narrow vested interests. Britishness was heavily eroded by the selling off of state assets and contraction of the UK state. British Nationalism is a rapidly eroding concept relying on ‘lies and deceit’ (as you say) to cling on.
The UK media coverage of the Glasgow equal pay demo was suspiciously ‘in depth’ considering it was, from a London perspective, a regional matter. In the current climate, news coverage of everything Scottish within the British state context must be considered to be on the bias.
We live in a Huxleyan world. It is contentedly dystopic. News is a branch of state capitalist entertainment. Like much digital social media from which ‘news’ is mostly derived, It does not ‘inform’ it simply fills the common boredom of existence with juicy morsels. Juicy with what ingredients is of course not indicated on the contents.
Caveat emptor!
Disgraceful, sly prevaricating unions, Unison and the GMB, doing their masters (Labour) dirty underhanded work for them.
Ordinary members of these unions, must be informed on how the unions use them as pawns.
When unions are working in this case for the State interest rather than their membership it is a bad indicator they have gone wrong somewhere.
Bottom line is they need Labour in power to run the show rather than just lobby for their interests. I remember only too well the Winter of discontent when Labour last gave the Unions power. Never again. It appears that the media,Political parties and Unions are now in cahoots. Too bad. We will beat them all. You cannot stop an idea whose time has come.
Good spot, Rev.
The unions dramatic Damascene “conversion” to the cause of equal pay for their own women members is quite something. Having spent more than a decade obstructing their own members justified claims, they suddenly decide in late Spring 2017 to about face and support them. The GMB and Unite unions have some explaining to do, especially to their own members. Will any MSM journalist pursue the issue?
[…] Wings Over Scotland The apex of the U There’s a remarkable piece in today’s Times about Stefan Cross, the lawyer working […]
I didn’t know Unite had joined in.
It will sadden me, but I will be cancelling my membership on Monday.
They have become part of the British Establishment attack on Scotland.
Mr Cross’ article fails to identify the Labour Party, in power in Glasgow, as the architect (along with he GMB) of the discriminatory pay scheme. Nor does he mention the £2.5 million that the Labour administration spent blocking a settlement.
An oversight? Or was any mention of Labour edited out?
I see from his answer to the question about what is his secret that Christopher Steele, who wrote the damaging dossier on Donald Trump, is his brother-in-law. Oops.
Labours record
I’m nearly 70 years of age and I went a so called posh Senior Secondary school where the toilets were outside midden type structures with no roof no toilet seats no hot water and no soap and if you required toilet paper you had to ask a teacher for it and were then handed two sheets, not a toilet roll but two sheets so God help you if you had an upset stomach or indeed if you were a girl with other kinds of needs…..Labour cares you know!
My local Hospital was due for refurbishment and a fuss was made of it on the radio and TV about how Labour were renewing Scotland, and they were because that refurbishment did take place in the record time of about one month when the painters had finished painting it the same colour of two tone green and cream it had been before because…Labour cares you know
The question always was and still is with Labour where did the money go that was allocated for the maintenance of services in Scotland and we all know the answer to that because the phrase was in common use and still is
*The Broon Envelope* or *Joab fur life* get in wae the Union and yer set for ever, you’ll get all the jobs because Big Tam or wee Jimmy’ll see ye right
Vote Labour and the Unions because…. they care you know!
About themselves!
The toilet paper was called *Izal* remember it? smooth on one side so it slipped up yer back and rough on the other so you’d develop the Tarzan shout, Aaaaheahee ahhhh
Ha! I know this one. It’s a variation of the John Cleese parlour game Don’t mention the wossaname, thingy. This is “write 1500 words without mentioning Labour to win the chance of a British Empire Biscuit”. Casting black looks at the SNP Baaaad will gain plus points. There, nothing to see here, move along.
How many times was “SNPbad” mentioned in the article?
Dr Jim I am the same vintage as you and I remember it well.
Those were the days – not!
link to aod-pod-uk-live.bbcfmt.hs.llnwd.net
At 5min 15seconds in there is the only honest comment made on MSM about this, not sure if the clip can be used by Wings?
As a former ardent trade unionist now retired , it sickens me to see the widespread corruption within these organisations and the BLIND collusion with the liebour party
The unions just like liebour have lost their founding principles , and as USUAL the ones who suffer most from this betrayal are the poorest members of society
It is way past time that ordinary members of these organisations rebelled , stopped their membership and their dues and see just how quickly the high heid yins respond
These organisations are now just businesses more interested in selling insurance policies and funeral plans , their revenues are now in the billions , but the workers will not benefit from that . Time for them to be dissolved and for the workers to take back control
Dr Jim
Izal I remember it well, had to breach some human rights legislation who made that stuff? What was its purpose?
Again I say,why are articles like this exposing the sheer screeming hypocricy of Labour not headlines in the National.
Happy Birthday Rev.
I suspect Labour and the unions know this is last chance saloon and they’re trying to tick as many boxes as they can with these actions.
The primary is damage the Scottish government in any way they can. Rewrite some history and launder their appalling past. Side with/use those they have wronged in an attempt to achieve all of the above.
What they have failed to mention to those folks though, with all their right-on agitation of these groups. Is just where they think the cash is coming from to right these wrongs.
Scotland’s budget is being slashed year on year. The Scottish government is already up to its oxters in mitigation of abysmal central govt. legislation. The mother and father of all shitstorms in the shape of Brexit is about to hit everyone, at every level of society. And now is when they choose to get active?
Really?
They should hang their heads in shame.
Their master’s voice (we had such a gramophone growing up) springs to mind about the GMB and the public sector unions. I was a member of the university lecturer’s union now expanded and renamed. It was, thankfully, non aligned politically so none of our subs went on subsidising any political party.
I’m pretty sure regardless of what job I’m in that I would not join the GMB, Unite or Unison and I am generally in favour of unions and trades unionism (I nearly just wrote unionism) but their behaviour of late has been beyond the pale. Now even their remaining members are suing them for dereliction of duty. Something clearly needs to change and not being beholden to those running the council you are negotiating with on behalf of your members who are employe by that council is as clear a conflict of interest as you will find.
I find it quite astonishing that the members of these unions have not demanded they become apolitical before now, especially in Scotland post the Great Awakening of IndyRef1. I suspect too much deployment of the false claim of unity etc tugging at traditional heart strings is at fault.
One of the problems of the AUT and what it has become is that by and large nobody notices if academics strike. The tactic of late of striking at exam time so marking is delayed is about as good as it gets. Us researchers tended not to go on strike on strike days since the only people we were hurting were ourselves and our careers. If all the researchers in the UK struck it would take about a decade before anybody much noticed.
Such is not the case with the big public 3, yet their members are amongst the lowest paid. Go figure.
They do seem to have had a sudden conversion.
If we’re being biblical in our references…….
“….the union experienced a Damascene conversion and threw their weight…..”
I’d prefer to hear, and it would would read better as ..
“the union experienced a Gadarene conversion and threw its weight…. over a cliff.
Collectable Vintage Izal on Ebay for a fiver a roll. It was practically middle-class, oor sterr-heid lavvy had wee skwerrs of the Daily Express!
IZAL AKA, rough and tough and takes no shit from anybody
“”…until the spring of 2017, at which point the union experienced a Damascene conversion and threw their weight fully behind the women and against the council.””
Well as Damascene conversions go I think St Paul’s is still the more believable. GMB suddenly believing in equal pay for women is too much of a stretch.
Aye the only place you could get a wash was the local swimming baths with the Red Soap but by Jingo you smelled clean once half your skin was rubbed off
Jason Smoothpiece @ 2.53pm
“”Of course newly qualified doctors start at £23000 ish, just saying.””
And those Junior doctors have done at least 5 years at University.
Newly qualified nurses start at £22128.
Probationary teachers start at £22866. If they are prepared to work anywhere in Scotland during their probationary year then they can submit a Preference Waiver form and thus qualify for an additional payment of £6000 (primary teacher), £8000 (secondary teacher). That may be subject to tax and NI but not sure.
It is precisely this disgusting politicisation of the unions and their total servitude to labour what has moved me to refuse registering with a union for the last 5 years and I will not register with one until the time they prove to be apolitical and not linked in any way or form to labour.
Speaking with one of the union reps at work in the past, they wanted to find out why I was not registered with a union. I answered to them that I could not stand labour and for as long as the unions were linked to that political party I would never become a member. My response totally took them by surprise. They were left without words for a few moments and then they attempted to claim: “but labour does not really have any input in the way the unions are being run… in any case it is the other way round…” I replied: “sorry, but that is not how it looks from where I am standing and therefore insufficient to convince me” And that was that. No more talk about it.
That was 2 years ago. Now that I see how careerist and opportunistic hypocrites like Rhea Wolfson were using the women and the vulnerable elderly and disabled to advance her career and to launch this farce to pretend the problem is caused by the SNP getting control of GCC a year and a half ago when in reality is Labour who has caused and prolonged this mess for a decade, I cannot help but feel even more contempt for both, unions and labour. They are to my eyes, nothing but a cartel of self serving hypocrites.
@ Dr Jim
Izal was in use in my Secondary in Paisley in the 70’s, and it was indoor bogs.
There was an uproar among the pupils at the “tracing paper”. It continued for months, until the powers that be changed to something resembling normal toilet paper.
Macart @ 4.14 yes sir, well said.
Dr Jim, you’ve started something now. Izal, jeez oh, I remember it well. You had tae kinda scrunch it up tae try and make it a wee bit softer. The red soap, ah yes, good old carbolic. It fairly took the skin off you right enough.Fred, I don’t recall Izal on a roll, it used tae came in a wee square box that only gave you one sheet at a time, ah memories, memories.
Happy birthday Rev.
Izal? Oh jeez! That brings back some unpleasant memories. 😀 LOL
Off topic
Piece in The Guardian today, timed 14.11. Tory, Labour and SNP working together on a killer amendment to put a vote to the people.
It’s all the Doctors, so Philippa Whitford is leading for SNP.
link to archive.is
The Red Tories and their Union ‘leaders’: The Party for the Mennies, not Femennies.
Corrupt to the core.
I can’t wait for Tom Gordon, Paul Hutcheon, David Clegg and Gordon Brewer ripping their Militant Commie corrupt lungs out on Sunday.
We are in the grip of a handful of crooks and more fool the union members who follow this lot blindly.
A lot of low paid women lost two days wages last week. Frank Gaffney doubtless dined on No 48, Beef Green Beans and black bean sauce, and perhaps put it on his eccies.
What price Brwer dragging Leonard onto his Sunday programme and demanding answers.
To any teacher ‘marching’ today for a 10% pay rise to teach kids who crawled to school Univeral Credit starving, I say, fuck off and get a life.
I know many teachers and none of them visit foodbanks.
In fact they are all comfortably off thank you very much.
3% per year for 3 years is an incredible deal on offer, but no, fuck society we want MORE> When to we want it? Backdated.
I don’t want to hear about teachers marking at 12 o’clock at night, and at weekends.
Do something about it within your workplace, like wot the rest of us do.
Try perching on a swivel chair at a supermarket checkout for 8 hours sliding groceries across a bar code reader, or Saturday night at A&E.
10% ?
Christ on a bike.
Like several others on here, I gave up membership of Unison a while back and their recent behaviour has served to underline that I made the right choice,
I am also relieved to have given up on Izal Medicated.
@Jack Collatin –
As so often with your comments, hear hear hear hear hear!
😉
but the women still have a right to equal pay regardless of the political shenanigans
If you took a sheet of IZAL bum scrubber (box or roll made no difference, it all stank) rubbed it with a white wax candle (mum always kept a tin under the kitchen sink), now, where the hell was I? . . . Aye, took yer sheet of waxed paper and laid it face down on yer fav comic an rubbed it hard with a spoon it would pick up a reversed faint image of what you’d rubbed over. You could the place this over the back of your hand, rub it like hell again and you’d get an image of yer fav comic hero (mine was Smiffy, Bash Street Kids, Beano) tattooed on the back of yer hand.
About the only use there was for that evil stinky arse wiper.
SLabers aren’t even any good for that!
These cowards have come out of hiding,happy to skulk behind the workers they deserted in the heat of the battle.
When the new administration moved quickly to solve the dispute,up they pop to disrupt the negotiations,what are they looking for, a pardon ?.
If they are,they fukc right off,on their watch,they have allowed an legally astute opportunist to agree the terms of the settlements for the workers.
But at what price to the workers/taxpayer ?
What services will have to be cut to pay for this,school meals ? education ? NHS ? Libraries? Bus Passes ? Council Services ? (and all of this on the eve of the calamity that is Brexit).
The workers didn’t not and indeed even now have not deserted them,these cowards left the battlefield under their own volition,they deserted the workers,their duties,their responsibilities,they have demonstrated time and time again that they are cowards and it is now time to finally cut the ropes that bind us, that are dragging us down.
Never has the case for an Independent Scotland been as clear as it it now,we must never again allow ourselves to held captive by these ‘gentlemen’ socialist that run Labour/Unions or these toxic,Brexit Blue Tories.
It is time for the normal,rational people of this country to be allowed free reign to run the country without these arseholes dictating the terms of the how,the why,the when.
This is no time for Scotland the Brave,It is time for Scotland to be normal,rational,responsible and Independent.
#NowIsThatTime
link to a4es.co.uk
26 Jan, 2018
WHO ARE THE MALCONTENTS?
So This is the query from The Times :
Dear Stefan,
I wonder if you can help me?
We are looking to publish an article exploring the consequences of your recent victory on equal pay in Glasgow.
It has been suggested that the total cost of righting this historical wrong will be in excess of £500 million.
A report prepared for the council states: “The amounts at stake are very large indeed”, while Susan Aitken acknowledged that “justice comes with a price” and that officers have been instructed to explore “all financial options”.
In Birmingham, where the council had to settle more than 10,000 outstanding claims, the total bill came to £1.1 billion.
This led to significant cuts to services, and the sale of a number of key public assets including the National Exhibition Centre.
Suggestions have been made that Glasgow will have to implement unprecedented cuts and and look at selling assets in order to be able to honour its responsibilities on equal pay.
My editor is very keen to get your take on this.
Would it be possible to get a statement for publication outlining why this action was necessary, what the next steps will be and your response to suggestions that it could result in significant job losses and cuts to services within the council?
Our deadline would be noon tomorrow.
Many thanks and best wishes,
Marc
Marc Horne, Scotland reporter, The Times
AND THIS IS MY REPLY:
Dear Marc
Thanks for your email. Apologies for the delay. Your email arrived whilst we were in discussions with the council.
I must say that I’m disappointed at the line that you are taking, suggesting that women claiming equal pay would be responsible for cuts in services. This is no better than blaming the hostesses at The Presidents Club for the sexual harassment they endured. The women of Glasgow are the victims here not the villains.
Second, this suggestion of massive cuts from an unnamed source is not the position of the SNP leadership. It sounds like carping from those that were responsible for the discrimination, sore that they got found out.
Third, it doesn’t need to be the position. There is Scottish government fund of £500m set up to deal with these issues which remains pretty much unused. If this needs to be increased then that is what the Scottish government should do. At the end of the day by underpaying these women for more than a decade the council will have saved billions of pounds, far more than they will ever have to payout.
These women have been treated appallingly for more than a decade and for them to be blamed for seeking their entitlement is just another form of sexism and victimisation.
The sooner these injustices are remedied the better.
The current administration is taking a positive approach to addressing these issues and we have a year of meetings planned to try and reach agreement on resolving these complicated problems. Sadly it seems some malcontents wish to disrail these discussions. Shame on them.
Regards,
Stefan Cross QC
So let’s see what gets printed. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that after labour got embarrassed into backing the SNP position last week that suddenly there’s negative briefings going on. Of course I might be wrong but as the source is anonymous we are left to guess.
You make up your own mind
Stefan Cross
@ Nick Dinner: 5.26
Absolutely, the women should and will get an equitable solution.
It will however take time to properly work out what every woman is due, find the money the pay out in a proper manner that doesn’t mean some of the ladies ending up over the 40% tax break for a single year + additional NHI.
The alternative would be an agreed tax free compensation average payment pro rata for the years worked which might be better all round.
The good ladies should also look to suing the Unions!
What it doesn’t need is the GMB and their SLabber cohorts stirring the pot.
Sorry above should be @ Nick Dunne.
Bloody spell check!
McDuff says:
27 October, 2018 at 3:44 pm
“Again I say,why are articles like this exposing the sheer screeming hypocricy of Labour not headlines in the National.”
Because apart from the 9,000 most gullible independence supporters, who also believe that the likes of Dugdale would be great assets to the Yes movement, everyone and their dog knows that The National’s support for independence is totally fake.
Dan Huil says: Dan Huil says:
27 October, 2018 at 2:01 pm
“British nationalism relies on lies and deceit. That’s why British nationalism and its so-called united kingdom will fail – and deservedly so.”
Have you noticed any decrease in the lies and deceit recently?
They even managed to get Nicola and the SNP Westminster leadership to stand “shoulder to shoulder” with “Tory scum” Saint Theresa and the “ghastly” Boris Johnson as they declared war on Russia after a false flag operation.
They have even managed to get Nicola and her SNP government to fully back the the shameless and dishonest Westminster civil servant who is trying to destroy Alex Salmond.
It hasn’t failed for the last 311 years and is unlikely to fail for the next 622 years.
Do you have the guts to go on the record and state that there will definitely be an independence referendum before Brexit has been completed?
You can’t play the comb-n-paper with soft loo roll, just saying like.
Rock
How would you go about persuading No voters to change their mind? Through you own hard effort or through your opponent’s character flaws. No voters need to be shown that Westminster does not deal with Scotland, in good faith. It think that task is well in hand but apart from that, I’d just be guessing.
CameronB Brodie says:
27 October, 2018 at 6:14 pm
“Rock
How would you go about persuading No voters to change their mind?”
Rock (23rd September 2014 – “We told you so #2”):
“If we want to become independent before all our resources have been stolen from us, we will have to turn into Spartans NOW.
Start hitting them where it hurts – their pockets.
No TV, no newspapers.
Start boycotting the likes of Tesco, Asda and Morrisons in favour of Lidl and Aldi – they don’t have a vested interest in Scotland remaining dependent.
Use any money saved to help the poorest of our society.
Do not engage with any of the MSM. Let all our work happen at the grassroots level, undetected by the MSM.
There is a minority of the elderly who have been longing for independence for a long time but the rest are British nationalists proud of the British Empire – don’t waste any time or money trying to convince them.
Also ignore the middle class – most of them will never be convinced.
Let us concentrate most of our efforts on the working class and the poor. Once we have their confidence, they will not let us down. And unlike Labour, we will never betray them.”
Rock (5th March – “Our problems and how to solve them”):
“In my humble opinion, with limited resources, it is the ultimate in stupidity to waste them on those who are highly unlikely to be convinced and converted: the British Nationalist elderly, the selfish middle classes, English settlers and the thugs.”
Rock
I’m not suggesting you are right or wrong but do you think your ‘bluntness’ is the way to go about winning friends and influencing people to accepting your opinion?
Rock (22nd February – “The makings of a deal”):
“Only the most stupid people on earth would give English settlers, including holiday home owners, a vote on Scotland’s independence from England.
Before there is a flood of pretendy pro-independence English settlers rushing to post, if you really want Scottish independence, there would be a better chance of achieving it if all English settlers were denied the vote.
It is a proven fact that the vast majority of the English voted No.
And it is not rocket science to forecast that the vast majority will always vote No.
I find that completely natural, but I find it completely wrong and stupid for them to be given a vote.
Brexit would not have won if EU nationals settled in the UK had been given the vote. In my view, it was right to deny them the vote.”
CameronB Brodie says:
27 October, 2018 at 6:28 pm
“Rock
I’m not suggesting you are right or wrong but do you think your ‘bluntness’ is the way to go about winning friends and influencing people to accepting your opinion?”
If you are talking about trying to win the likes of Dugdale, yes, I would tell them to their face that they are not wanted anywhere near the Yes campaign. They stink to high heaven.
The vast majority of the categories I have mentioned – the British Nationalist elderly, the selfish middle classes, English settlers and the thugs – are unwinnable – be totally blunt with them, don’t waste your limited time and resources on them.
In my opinion, the winnable are the working class and the poor. Those are the ones who should be treated with care and respect by Yes campaigners as well as the SNP government, in word and in action.
Protecting the British Nationalist elderly, the selfish middle classes and English settlers from Tory austerity gives them the best of both worlds.
I have given my views. You should now ask the usual suspects who always attack me to give theirs, especially how they are getting on with convincing Tories to vote Yes.
Izal medicated don’t you know!
How’s about a bit of “realist” moral philosophy and philosophy of language, with a bit of Ethical Realism to finish of?
link to researchgate.net
The Explanatory Challenge: Moral Realism Is No Better Than Theism
link to onlinelibrary.wiley.com
link to ethicalrealism.wordpress.com
Newspaper for bog roll?
The drains will get blocked and there will be nae Polish plumbers left to deal with it!
Izal, outside toilets in 50’s Primary; inside in Secondary in 60’s but, still Iza therefore waited till I got home – we had changed brand by then.
Carbolic very refreshing after gym and rugby – no not a masochist, albeit I lived in Paisley
Well said Jack Collatin.
Labour really are the lowest of the low. At least we know where we stand with the tories.
They know they are putting scotgov in a corner. I’d like to see the teachers get a decent pay rise or alternatively more resources but that means cutting elsewhere or raising taxes. with our own currency it would be a case of simply issuing more currency (that thing the mainstream call the national debt.)
Labour want to see the SNP alienate the electorate by increasing income tax.
So why don’t we just stop the new Scotland office going ahead. That would save a bob or ten or alternatively why don’t labour back a land value tax.
John Swinney should stick to his guns. The man in the street wonder why anybody would be looking for a pay rise in these economic circumstances especially as most folk believe teachers are already well paid.
There is no huge public support for teachers’ wage rises .
I’m an ex fully qualified teacher. Fully qualified degreed teachers with required years of service get more than the English equivalent teacher at around £36,000 per annum and that’s pretty good. When I started teaching as a graduate teacher in the 1960 our salaries were not very far away from average wages.
@Jack collatin 5.07:
“To any teacher ‘marching’ today for a 10% pay rise to teach kids who crawled to school Univeral Credit starving, I say, fuck off and get a life.”
Thanks, I’ll tell my daughter that. She is in at school for 7.30 every day and leaves about 5.30. Schools only keep working because most teachers know working to the clock only harms the kids, hence hundreds of unpaid hours a year and gradual demoralisation.
“I know many teachers and none of them visit foodbanks.
In fact they are all comfortably off thank you very much.”
Your last sentence seems very much like a sweeping statement. Unless you get promotion, your “reward” for being unpromoted (and there are few promoted posts these days) after a three or four-year degree plus graduate training of a year or a straight four-year B.Ed degree is not great. In material terms, do you ever get back 4-5 years of no salary? Would you be happy if your doctor or lawyer or accountant had to resort to foodbanks? If not, why not? Reductio ad absurdam, it seems to me. And, unlike in England, teaching in Scotland is an all-graduate profession.
“I don’t want to hear about teachers marking at 12 o’clock at night, and at weekends.” Maybe not, but many, many, do. It was a feature of my life, and my wife’s, for decades and, short of not assessing pupils’ work, we had no choice but get on with it. I knew my union would do SFA about it. Highers had to be passed, and university access with it, so what was I supposed to do?.
“Do something about it within your workplace, like wot the rest of us do.”
Here I agree with you, to a point. They should be taking it to their union and they do but the EIS and its mini-me SSTA don’t care about workload, ‘cos they sit in union offices in Edinburgh and don’t really give a Carmichael about this problem.
As someone said up thread, they only really care about selling insurance to their members and other peripheral services. Their response to workload concerns is usually to issue a questionnaire to teachers, which kicks the can down the road and saves them doing anything for a while.
As I have said before, the EIS has consistently ignored concerns from its members about the serious weaknesses in assessment, planning and materials for The Curriculum for Excellence because it would have to earn its corn standing up to the bullying management style of both the Inspectorate and the Scottish Qualifications Authority and it hasn’t got the cojones to do that, certainly not with Comrade Flanagan in charge. The thought of him leading a strike makes me laugh. Maybe he’s been offered a berth in the HoL from his masters if he can cause enough mayhem over this.
I’ve little doubt the strike threat is part of a wider public sector-coordinated BLiS______d campaign against the SG but your target, Jack, should be the unions, not the folk who keep the educational show on the road in the face of many problems exacerbated by the great Tory-Labour Austerity Project.
Izal was in use when I started working in hospital labs in the mid-60s. Each sheet was stamped ‘Government Property’.
This left you with a bit of a dilemma after using it.
Getting back to the original post and the lack of any mention of Labour’s involvement in this. BBC Radio Scotland this morning, at around 9.15am, had a lengthy ‘report’ by Jamie McIvor giving a run down on the history, current position and likely costs, etc. of this ‘dispute’.
There was only one mention of a political party in the whole piece and that was SNP.
You have to admire the effort that must go in to writing a piece (of crap) like that so that you never have to use the L word. That would seem to be blatant political bias and, without a doubt, is not balanced reporting.
Shower of ………..(add your own adjective(s) at this point).
I notice on STV? news that one striking teacher being interviewed stated that their pay was somewhat less than that of their European colleagues.
Does that not say something?
Tinto,
I find it extraordinary that ‘20,000’ (aye,right) graduates are taken in by the Flanagans and Leonards of this world.
They are old style ‘everybody out’ Marxist Militants, incidentally on six figure salaries themselves plus never having to buy lunch expenses, who are determined to destroy Scottish Society, and are committed Brit Nat Corbynites to boot.
My point is, that the whole of Scotland’s public servants are suffering because we are still in their precious Union, and in Jan 2015, the Blue Red and Yellow Tories with a few notable exceptions, voted through Osborne’s budget of ‘Fiscal Responsibility’, or as we know it £32 billion in cuts (austerity measures) to public services, public service jobs, and Welfare Payments of which the quite cynical King Herod Universal Credit is the main killer of children by poverty privation, and desolation.
I know that teachers and social workers and nurses and GP’s and bus drivers, and our Police are at the sharp end of this unheard of Right Wing WM assault on the Common People, dealing on a daily basis with myriad of problems which state engineered poverty inflicts on our most vulnerable citizens.
We are all in this together, apart from that top 10% who think that they own Scotland and rule with an invisible hand.
IT seems selfish that teachers would say, we don’t care, we demand a 10% rise, and the others can fend for themselves, go on strike, leave bins un-emptied, operations cancelled, bodies left unburied, and trains at a standstill.
The good old days of the 1960’s.
Flanagan and Leonard are lovin’ it.
Ok, lets pay every teacher 20%, no, 50% more.
Would that mean that your daughter wouldn’t have to go in at 07.30 of a morning, work ’til 17.30 and not burn the midnight oil correcting work?
No, it wouldn’t.
I find it astonishing that teachers are portrayed as such limp wristed petals who are bullied by management, and head teachers.
None of the pedagogues I know are shrinking violets. Some disappear to Florida or Spain for six weeks in the summer, rather than crawl into a darkened room, curl up on the floor and suck their knees having a nervous breakdown.
In my day, imparting knowledge was a vocation, and I’m sure the same applies now.
We are all in this together.
The tattered remnants of Trade Unionism in Scotland is in the hands of these charlatans.
I expect Teachers to accept that we are on the threshold o major change in Scotland, for the better.
I refuse to allow English MPs and Trades Unions to force me out of Europe.
This is the immediate fight.
3%, 3% and 3%, over the next three years, an index linked final salary benefits described pension, seems like a pretty good deal to me, given our torrid times.
Leonard, Flanagan, and big Neil Findlay must be peeing themselves laughing that it is so easy to herd people on to the streets, and blame, not 70 years of criminally corrupt councils, but the SNP.
I rage, Tinto. I really do.
sandy says:
27 October, 2018 at 7:42 pm
“”I notice on STV? news that one striking teacher being interviewed stated that their pay was somewhat less than that of their European colleagues.
Does that not say something?””
Not really. They may not be comparing like with like.
Other OECD/European countries have higher entry qualifications for teachers and salaries reflect that . For example, Norway you need a Masters Degree to train to be a teacher.
The OECD recently published a comprehensive report on Education – ‘ Education at a Glance 2018’ which covers things like hours worked, salaries etc.
You can find it here – click on the link to the pdf copy of the report
link to oecd-ilibrary.org
In section D3 of the report which deals with Salaries you will find that teacher salaries in Scotland are on or about the OECD average
Re Vagabond above
Possible cuts to Glasgow Council budget/services due to previous Labour administration and their pet unions depriving female employees of equal pay.
Should this unfortunate situation arise, I earnestly hope that Glasgow Council shout and spread the real reasons for any cuts to the good burghers of Glasgow as to the real culprits are and may these culprits never be shown any favour again or better, may they rot in hell.
What are you going on about, my mam bought ‘Bronco’ and because of this I was called posh. If I remember correctly it was smothish on both sides and it made better tracing paper than Izal.
Teachers are obviously not as smart as they think they are,
imagine having a University degree but still being hoodwinked by a British Nationalist unions agenda,
if the teachers are that stupid they don`t deserve a pay rise they should be getting their pay docked.
Auld Rock – I used Izal to forge many a sick note from ‘my mum’ resulting in cosy days off the dreaded school. 😉 So good for tracing, not so much for its intended purpose.
Also outside toilets in primary and first 2 years of secondary. Only in third year did we experience the luxury of inside toilets and, I think, absorbent loo roll. If we’re not careful, the Tories and brexit will take us back to those ‘heady’ days of empire. 🙁
Let’s never forget that this could all have been sorted across the whole of Scotland in 200y when already £117 million had been paid out in compensation by Scottish councils.
Not just Glasgow and it’s not just Glasgow now who still have these issues to settle.
The fact is that back in 2006/07 Jack McConnell and the Labour administration running Holyrood had £1.5 billion in the kitty that could have settled this once and for all yet the money was left in the treasury as there was “nothing to spend it on”.
That’s the real disgrace and the problem now is that the SNP administration want to settle but have to find the money from somewhere when even their own funding is being cut due to austerity.
The Unions have to realise this, the money is simply not there to pay for all of Labours failures in more than the past decade. They need to reach a settlement that everyone can live with.
Labour ARE to blame for not settling this years ago
The Tories ARE to blame for making it difficult to settle now.
YET THE MSM LABOUR AND THE TORIES BLAME THE SNP.
It’s not on.
Born in 1952, but have no memory of the brand names of the predominant toilet rolls of my growing up.
This is why I’ll never write my memoirs.
But here’s someone who does.
link to archive.is
“Men like being masterful”
Philip Green obviously a Bronco man then!
“I rage, Tinto. I really do.”
Yes, I know, Jack, and I usually love you for it, as many do here and in The Other Place.
“IT seems selfish that teachers would say, we don’t care, we demand a 10% rise, and the others can fend for themselves, go on strike, leave bins un-emptied, operations cancelled, bodies left unburied, and trains at a standstill.”
Well, for one, we’re not in the situation in the 80s so that’s a non-starter and they haven’t said that. My daughter wasn’t on the march because she was doing schoolwork today before a parents’ night and report cards, as it happens.
“None of the pedagogues I know are shrinking violets. Some disappear to Florida or Spain for six weeks in the summer, rather than crawl into a darkened room, curl up on the floor and suck their knees having a nervous breakdown.
In my day, imparting knowledge was a vocation, and I’m sure the same applies now.”
Well, if it’s a vocation, maybe teachers should just pay the schools for the honour of teaching? Maybe you could suggest an appropriate remuneration? The only reason nurses get treated like shit is because everyone knows they won’t go on strike. What’s the price for a vocation, Jack? And go easy on the nervous breakdown schtick, ‘cos it trivialises a serious problem I met many times in my time in the job.
The bottom line is I wouldn’t dream of pontificating to an oil-rig worker, a social worker, a lecturer or anyone else about their job and its pay, promotion structures, frustrations or anything else. I would trust what they tell me about their problems. You have to do the job to know the score on so many levels.
I came to loathe both main teaching unions, which are led by careerists and chancers who normally avoid confrontation with the local authorities to give everyone there and in the unions an easier time.
It’s called Controlled Opposition, and I’ve no doubt the 10% union claim is formulated to cause the maximum embarrassment to the SG but it needs a bit of guile to caa the feet from Comrade Flanagan and his minions.
The teachers aren’t the enemy.
Wonder why there is no mention on the wider BBC website of the Teachers marching for more money in Scotland.
Maybe they don’t want English teachers to realise how poorly they are paid?
Would have thought they would want to report more SNP baad stuff especially as it’s an opportunity to get at Nicola’s Education mantra.
Maybe it’s the Greens that are stirring this, Slab stirring the women in GCC… shower of charlatans the lot of them.
Distracting us all from the real problem the incredibly poor Tory mismanagement of the entire country… why not march against WM policies?
Remember our junior Doctors didn’t strike/march when England was in chaos – why, because they realise who is looking after them.
The EIS are taking the piss. Good on the teachers who are having nothing to do with this.
I had to visit a school last Thursday for a meeting to educate teachers that you can’t say *stop being Autistic* to someone who’s Autistic because it doesn’t work
There was more involved than just that but I think you get the point
Now I shouldn’t have to do that
We all have respect for the teaching profession, we know it’s difficult, we all know it’s challenging, we all know it’s the baby sitting nightmare that it sometimes turns into, we all know standards are changing
So if we know that why do teachers act as if the whole thing’s a big surprise to them after they apply for and get the job doing what they’ve been training for and saying it’s the vocation they all wanted to do to make a difference
The respect is there but to act stupidly with pretendy naivety when it suits them diminishes the respect
I hasten to add this does not apply to all teachers just the con artists the politically motivated and the people who should never be allowed to be teachers in the first place because they’re the ones who make the rest of us drop our respect for what is one of the most important jobs anyone can do in any society
Yes, early toilet paper was weird. Remember Izal? Polished on one side so if you didn’t scrunch it up it would slip/aqua plane in a very unhelpful way usually resulting in messy hands or if you did scrunch it up you risked laceration from the hard sharp corners that involved.
As a result, many people preferred to use newspaper rather than the toilet paper on offer.
Of course, nowadays many people would prefer to use newspaper for that function than read it, but for very different reasons.
@ Tinto Chiel – well said. I think there is a great deal of manipulation and divide-and-rule going on with Labour and some Unions.
For those upthread condemning the influence of Unions on the Labour Party, a wee reminder that the Unions created the Labour Party to represent them in Parliament. The slow and painful dismantling of that relationship is what paralyses Labour now. We need an effective opposition, we will need one in an independent Scotland, but there is none.
CameronB Brodie posted a link to a History and Policy talk in 2012 on the relationship between Labour and the Trade Unions. There are some interesting insights. Billy Hayes of the CWU, fighting to keep the Royal Mail nationalised:
And so on.
link to historyandpolicy.org
Re Izal. I don’t know if Izal made it but the civil service toilet paper was as near as damnit the same stuff. (Board of Trade, civil aviation division circa 1970).
However, each sheet had GOVERNMENT ISSUE stamped upon it.
Here’s a thing, all the services we take for granted are taking a pounding and it has been that way for the last 10 years.
TEN years for godsake because of austerity and the cost of bailing out the bankers, yet who have suffered?
It shouldn’t need telling but it’s the whole of society! The teachers, the nurses, the cleaners, the tradesmen have all suffered for the greed of the few so that they needn’t suffer.
All of us here, I believe feel the same about the injustice that especially the poorest and the disabled suffer. We despise their suffering because it is not necessary.
It’s an ideology gone wrong, I mean foodbanks FFS.
I’m ashamed at my own inability to change anything. I won’t stop trying.
I also wish a decent pay rise for all public employees such as the teachers and nurses but most of all I wish they would consider the plight of others less fortunate than themselves and come round to supporting Independence.
Then I believe we can make things better for all of us.
Do these hypocrites feel any guilt or shame? I hope so, for their sake because if they do not, then as human beings they have failed utterly.
Dr Jim says:
27 October, 2018 at 3:23 pm
I’m nearly 70 years o’ age mysel’, an’ I went tae an Academy, I remember Izal toilet paper not fondly, ma recognition o’ it wis that it wis skitety oan baith sides an’ smelt nasty, a lot like Red Tories noo’adays
Some folk caa’d “John Wayne” toilet paper – caus’ it “dinnae tak’ nae shit fae ony wan ! Noo’adays Red Tories abstain at the drap o’ a hat, so much fur the party o’ opposition, yup the nasty smell is still ther’ !
Went to see Peterloo the other night. Had to leave before the Qand A with Mike Leigh but definitely worth seeing. It raises so many issues still relevant today.
I remember wandering past a hotel in Manchester years ago and there was a wee red plaque about it and that sent me off looking for info and I found out about the ‘insurrection’.
Anyway despite the people gathering peacefully, they were hacked down and those in power retained power.
In the run up to and through out the Indy ref, I thought I’d discussed or read about every possible topic.Talked about them, turned them upside down and inside out but one of the things the film brought home to me is just how big a job of trying to change things, we’ve taken on.
How really big a job.
As others have said before and it’s only now I really really get it, we are still trying to do things by the Unions ( 1707 one) rules .The Scottish Govt is still trying to play bonny with one hand tied behind their back and yet somehow expect a fair hearing.
I’m not talking revolution here, I’m just saying it’s time for a different approach.
Why can’t GCC get work shops for the workers,get them involved in process? The women have said they don’t trust the pay assessors why cant staff be involved ?
Even as a pilot?
Could teachers even have area get togethers to discuss issues,good practice , maybe they do I don’t know?
Could the Scottish Govt be better at communicating ?
@Scot Finlayson says: 27 October, 2018 at 8:37 pm:
” … if the teachers are that stupid they don`t deserve a pay rise they should be getting their pay docked.”
Aye! Scot, I already mentioned that, several topics age.
As they want comparison with other countries then give them it. Put them in line with an average of the other three United Kingdom countries. After all if the UK is Brexiting it is best to compare with the UK and not the EU or Scandinavian nations.
Then use the money saved on the teacher’s to help finance the Glasgow underpaid women and everyone will be in line with those they can be compared to.
This is, after all not an SG or SNP matter it is a Glasgow Council matter. I expect the other Scottish Councils would then follow Glasgow and settle their debts to the discriminated women in their own council areas.
@Capella and Thepnr: amen to all that.
Reading this thread carefully, I’ve just discovered Izal had a rough side.
Truly, every day is a school day on Wings.
Over the last couple of years I’ve posted now and then (as have other here) that I couldn’t see me ever voting Labour again .. yet throughout these last couple of years what have Labour done to change my mind. Not Nothing. In fact they’ve created more and more reasons why I could never give them my vote. I believe that even if the SNP were destroyed as a party (due to MI6 and others shenanigans) I would never ever vote Labour. And I voted for the for a quarter of a century.
Izal also comprised of a number of products banned today because of their carcinogenic inducing nature. It was a product of coal oil production, though personally I think using a lump of coal would have been preferable.
Every sheet had “now wash your hands” imprinted, or an appropriate logo for the firm supplied. They also made coal tar soap, which was effective in killing any bacteria among other things that dared venture near you.
Breaking 1 hour age:-
link to youtube.com
Molly,
“Went to see Peterloo the other night.”
Look forward to a film of the Tranent Massacre being made.
This Wiki article started life as one of the ‘Hidden Histories’ series from Cawin’ Thigither.
link to en.wikipedia.org
Breaking 5 hours ago:-
link to youtube.com
@Chic(k): re Tranent, have you read “Scotland’s Forgotten Massacre” by Sandy Mullay, Embra 1979?
Strong meat.
Reluctant Nationalist says:
27 October, 2018 at 9:12 pm
The EIS are taking the piss. Good on the teachers who are having nothing to do with this.
Seems to me more like two sets of organisational loyaists coming into conflict with one another.
Would that there were a genuine cultural revival in the country and that we had true teachers.
@ vagabondo 5.45 pm good capture and a good letter written by Stephan Cross to the Times , the only problem I have with his response is like others , he only vaguely mentions the other previous administration , he does not name labour as being the blockers to the settlement nor the fact that the labour administration spent approx 2.5 MILLION pounds in mostly legal costs opposing the women’s entitlement.
The labour party especially wee Dicks involvement and the unions especially GMB ( GREEDY MANIPULATIVE BASTIRTS ) must be at the forefront of ANY negative comments relating to this debacle
Tinto Chiel @ 7.25pm
“”…Unless you get promotion, your “reward” for being unpromoted (and there are few promoted posts these days) after a three or four-year degree plus graduate training of a year or a straight four-year B.Ed degree is not great.”
….
Teachers during their probationary year are on a salary of £22,866. For comparison Doctors in their Foundation year – year 1 after graduation – earn £23,672 and newly qualified nurses earn £22, 128.Once they are fully registered after their probationary year they go onto the unpromoted scale which goes from £27, 438 to £36, 480. Not exactly foodbank territory. There are many bringing up families on a lot less
No university student no matter their degree is earning a salary during their time at University but they will over their career lifetime make up for those 4 years of no salary particularly in Scotland where they are not saddled with debt due to tuition fee loans etc. as their counterparts in England are. In Scotland the average loan balance in 2018 of those entering repayment was £13230 and in England it was £34,800.
I think you will find that you do need a degree to enter teaching in England.
As to workload, it is a conceit on the part of the teachers if they think they are the only ones who take work home. Take for example, University lecturers. Continuous assessment is now pretty well part and parcel of university courses these days and many of the teachers will be familiar with such a system when they were undergraduates. Under such a system there is a constant stream of work to be marked and returned to students with feedback. When it comes to the exams it is the lecturers who mark them whereas certificate exams in Schools are not marked by teachers. On top of their teaching and marking workload the lecturers, particularly in the sciences, will have research to do and grant applications to write in order to keep the money coming in that allows them to pay their research teams. No pressure then.
And this work pattern is true for many, many professions.
Continuous assessments are a very good system. They take the pressure of the exams to a certain extent because the students will have built up a bank of marks before even entering the exam hall. In carrying out the CA work the students research the subject to a greater extent than would otherwise be the case and it also means that when it comes to the exam revision is less onerous. It also allows students to acquire the transferrable skills – researching, collating and presenting material as well, in some cases, small group working – which are applicable across many areas.
The CfE had something similar -unit assessments which the teachers wanted rid of – that workload complaint again. In January 2016 a Working Group was set up to look at Assessments and National Qualifications. The group was composed of representatives from the Unions, Parents groups, SQA etc. The teachers reps were adamant that unit assessments had to go. It was pointed out to them that if they were removed then the integrity of the exams would be compromised and might not meet the requirement for University entry. The Group issued a report in March with recommendations for some changes to ease the workload. The teachers unions balloted for industrial action. From March through to the autumn the SQA and others worked on recommendations that would allow unit assessments to be removed and these were accepted by John Swinney who announced at a teachers conference in Glasgow in Sept 2016 the decision to remove unit assessments starting with National 5s in 2017-18. This was hailed as a ‘victory for common sense’ by the teachers.
The result of this was that the exams for the pupils had to be longer.
By the time of their next conference in 2017 teachers had decided that doing away with unit assessments had not reduced their workload yet they had been the ones pushing for it.
In 2018 the exams for National 5 were 30 minutes longer. The pass rate was down 2-3%.
Over the years teachers have done great damage to their own standing by the and unprofessional attitude. It started with their strikes in the 1980 and has continued ever since.
Peffers: “teacher’s”
Lol
@Molly
@Chick McGregor
link to en.m.wikipedia.org
” The insurrection was largely forgotten as attention focussed on better publicised Radical events in England “
Well, that hasn’t changed much.
Tinto
I have. But when I researched and wrote that Hidden History which later became a Wiki article, I had not. He subsequently rebuked me for not including him in the reference list, quite rightly, but in my defence I did not at the time know of its existence. I was very happy to see him included in the reference list as it now stands. The article has evolved somewhat from its original form, which is the beauty of Wiki, and I’m sure some of the tweaks are from his invaluable contribution.
Molly, galamcennalth,
There was also a one sheet ‘Hidden History; from Cawin’ Thigither which sought to promote awareness of the insurrection of 1820 as well and the courage displayed by the citizens of Greenock in particular. (In which J Halliday is referenced).
With teaching unions claiming 10% increase and the attempt to get the Scottish government to underwrite the female workers justifiable claims for back pay from GCC. which would open the door to all other councils in the same position to look for similar help from a source whose income is limited by Westminster it does seem like a conspiracy to bring down the Scottish government.
We on this echo chamber can see this but I wonder why the teaching profession who are already paid more than their colleagues elsewhere in the UK want more of the meagre cake when too many people are having to use food banks and are their unions fighting the British government on the same issue.
There was a poll by Yougov a couple of days ago that on the question:
If there were a general election held tomorrow,
which party would you vote for?
The Tories were 41% and Labour on 36%(almost unbelievable)
What interested me though on the same question was the result from the Scottish weighted subsample of 157 and how they would vote. All figures are %.
Con 17
Lab 13
Lib 4
SNP 40
Oth 4
D/K 15
Ref 7
Excluding the Don’t knows and refused results in:
Con 22
Lab 17
Lib 5
SNP 51
Oth 5
OK it’s just a sample of 157 people but this is tremendous compared to previous samples from the same pollster for the Times.
Believe me I downloaded the results from the previous 6 weeks and this is a massive change though it has been steadily rising until this leap.
Putting these results into electoral calculator has the SNP winning 58 out of the 59 Scottish seats at Westminster hahaha. Tell you what though I think we might be getting somewhere close and doing something right.
Tranent Massacre!
How about This:-
link to prestoungrange.org
Thepnr
And in the face of that wall of sound which screams SNP BAD from the, so called, Scottish media.
Hopefully, some of them at least, will suffer the same fate Phil Spector.
Oops bit of a mistake there with the bold.
One important thing whether this poll is anywhere near accurate or not is that the trend is clear if you look at the last 6 polls.
That is Labour in Scotland are on the slide and there is no way back.
The way that power and wealth are negotiated in society, is articulated through a practice known as “corporatism”, a formal and less-formal arrangement of ideological institutions and political power. As old, if not older than the Catholic Church, corporatism has gained something of a bad name over the years, though the function it performs can’t easily be replicated. Especially not without a written constitution. Such a document might make actions such as the GMB’s, unconstitutional, thereby helping clean up political process. Particularly if the constitution encapsulated the “Right to Development”. Just a thought. 😉
link to cambridge.org
3 Types of Power in Negotiation
Your power in negotiation depends on both objective and subjective factors at the bargaining table
link to pon.harvard.edu
Democracy’s Interest in Groups.
Interest Group Corporatism and Democratic Theory
link to summit.sfu.ca
Clootie 1.39pm. Yes. And it was also a labour party who gave ATOS the contract to humiliate,dehumanise, the least well off in society whom these scumbags purport to support.
From talking to a teacher in the family, it would appear that the main problem is lifestyle. There doesn’t appear to be an adequate support structure in place in terms of personnel and materials The CofE puts more onus on the individual teacher to be creative and inevitably impinges on their spare time.
The thing is, the conversation becomes very emotional every time the subject comes up so it’s very difficult to get the facts across – namely that austerity comes from the currency issuing government, I.e Westminster.
People are accustomed to the myth that taxation pays for things. Govt spending and taxation isn’t so much chicken and egg – but egg (currency issuance) and omelette (tax revenue).
A £ cannot be sent back to govt as tax revenue if it is not issued by govt in the first place.
As a non-currency issuing nation, with very limited borrowing powers, scotland really would have to increase taxes to put more resources into education, health etc. Said family member voted for the Lib Dem’s at holyrood because Willie said he would put 1p on income tax for funding of education.
Sounds great only if you ignore the fact that the fib dems are largely responsible for tuition fees.
Anyway, we are in a fix and labour are trying to squeeze the life out of us. There are still innovative ways out of this I believe.
Here’s an idea floated for Eurozone states (Greece, Italy) being squeezed by the neoliberals in Brussels in their enforcement of the stability growth pact…
link to neweconomicperspectives.org
@Legerwood: “Not exactly foodbank territory. There are many bringing up families on a lot less.” Indeed but I did not say it was. What’s the rate for the job then?
Re student loans, would you be happier if Scottish graduates were saddled with debt?
Following graduation, many careers have different remuneration. A “vocation” such as a GP doctor may garner £100,000+, when most no longer have out of hours pressures or those associated with minor surgery, as in years past. It all boils down to what society decides is the rate for the job.
Comparing conditions and assessment procedures in different jobs is very much in the apples V oranges category. Each job has its pressures and problems. How does society quantify these?
“By the time of their next conference in 2017 teachers had decided that doing away with unit assessments had not reduced their workload yet they had been the ones pushing for it.”
Yes, because workload pressures had still increased inexorably elsewhere, as in areas such as further classroom planning and first-line guidance duties in both primary and secondary sectors as austerity measures began to bite even deeper into family life. NAB or internal unit assessments in secondary were a wizard wheeze to reduce the cost of rigorous external examinations while getting teachers to mark them locally.
“I think you will find that you do need a degree to enter teaching in England.” I think you will find that you don’t have to be a subject specialist to teach that subject in England. I should have phrased my point more accurately. Thank you.
“Over the years teachers have done great damage to their own standing by the and unprofessional attitude. It started with their strikes in the 1980 and has continued ever since.”
Unusually for you, you move away from a rational approach to opinion. It’s laughable to paint teachers as strike mad. How many strikes in the last twenty years? Have not lecturers gone on a campaign of industrial action?
If lecturing is so fraught and teaching relatively easy as you imply, perhaps lecturers should consider a cushier job like primary/secondary teaching? I return to my point that it is very difficult to compare one job to an other. I don’t pontificate about other folk’s jobs ‘cos I don’t know diddly-squat about any of that, other than nurses are grossly overworked in my experience and highly skilled.
Opponents of social progression and a better society for all have divide and rule as a basic strategy. The bad guys here are the regressive BLiS______d agents who are manipulating grievances to their advantage.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to go on so much but I’m only responding to legitimate comments/concerns.
I’ll shut up now.
@Tinto Chiel
Well said.
But they shouldn’t be striking for more pay, they should be striking for being paid for the hours they work, and striking to have support in the classroom so they can teach, not be social workers. They didn’t train to be social workers, didn’t want to be social workers, they trained to T-E-A-C-H.
And any that say others have the same probem with taking work home, that’s their problem and they too should fight for their rights to a home life. Many are on call 24/7 without callout pay, and even overtime, particularly in the private sector.
Well don’t do it. Switch the damn phone off, or give the employer a burner number. They should stand up for their human rights, rather than picking on people who are prepared to stand up and march.
Andy-b 2.52 pm. Andy back in the nineties when i worked as a bus driver i sussed these lying b*****d unions out, and cancelled my subs. I realised then these a*****es were only manipulating the poor stupid workers to fund the london red tory party.
@Chick 10.15: no worries. Looking forward to your film script.
You know you want to…
@yesindyref2:I can’t really comment now after my self-denying ordinance, I suppose.
Silly boy, me…..
😛
@Dr Jim
Sure you’ll get bad teachers, you get bad in any job.
But autism is common, now it’s recognised, and many teachers cope with it in the classrom as best they can, some very well. But it can be very disruptive. There are also other special needs to be looked after. Yes, I have a teacher in the family.
Thepnr 10.42pm. The’Walking dead ‘obviously alive and well in coatbridge.
@Tinto Chiel
There seems to be a lack of understanding around of what teachers have to do these days, and a too quick attitude to condemn the teachers because they’re not the Scottish Government or something like that.
The other thing is that there’s less and less going into teacher training as well, partly because existing teachers are telling them the problems and hard work they have, and advising them not to. The joys of social media, and young people actually talking to each other.
And that’s it from me too!
@Bobp
It’s a fair point about Coatbridge, 25% turnout though how representative might that be?
I know a teacher who came up from England to work here in Scotland, when I asked him why, he said *It’s a bloody nightmare down there*
He said more but I think that’s enough
yesindyref2: I couldn’t possibly comment on your perceptive comment so I’m off to bed, you complete fruit loop 😛
Where’s me washboard?
I was a member of the GMB once though that was before they joined with the General & Municipal Workers Union.
My trade union had a much grander name.
The Amalgamated Society of Boilermakers, Shipwrights, Blacksmiths and Structural Workers.
It was a shipyard union for all the trades that worked with the steel that made the hull so not the engineers or the joiners ect.
My experience with them was not good, not good at all really and I’ll mention why later. It starts when you get your first days work and that started then in the training school where the apprentices spent their first year.
So you’ve only just got your overalls on for your first days work after leaving school and then at 10 O’clock your all invited to the mess room to hear from the shop stewards.
Then we were told that this shipyard along with every other one in Scotland was a “closed shop” and that if you weren’t in a Union then you couldn’t work there. I think we all cheered.
Then we were told that this didn’t apply to apprentices and that we didn’t need to join until we had served our time but that if we did it would be 10p a week and would be deducted from your wages.
Sign here… and we all did.
I’ll tell the “not good” experience later.
Chic McGregor
Thanks for that, I have never heard that before about Greenock but then again I only found out about Thomas Muir a few years ago. I did read somewhere recently that there has been a real explosion in people wanting to find out more.
For me, its the whole social history that you learn that gives you a better understanding of how we got here or why that bit land/building/street called that.
I came across a programme the other night where the guy works in the archives. He was able to show how the land looked before East Kilbride was built and the exhibition in 1951 and further back. It was great because it’s places you recognise and explained why they changed.
Also pointed out they put a motorway straight through Glasgow but wouldn’t have dared do it to Edinburgh
Yesindyref2
It’s tough out there and although I agree about standing up for your rights, I recently left a job because although I worked officially 8 hours in the day, you did not get paid driving time so you actually were working 8 am until 20.45 as the tasks were spread throughout the day-five days a week.
You only got paid for the 8 though.
No Union was allowed.
The company weren’t doing anything illegal.
O/T has the Revs Twitter account been hacked or mine. When on his page I’m seeing “20 new tweets” and 30 seconds later “40 new tweets”
When you click on them though there is nothing??
Anyone else seeing the same?
I’m sitting here amazed watching the number of “new tweets” click up. Try for yourselves.
link to twitter.com
Thepnr – I think he’s getting a lot of hate ‘birthday greetings’ and just not publishing them if that’s a thing you can do on twitter.
Tinto Chiel @ 10.57 pm
I gave the pay scales for the unpromoted posts in my reply.
“”Re student loans, would you be happier if Scottish graduates were saddled with debt?””
How on earth did you take that from what I said. We are talking about Scottish teachers and you mentioned the years without a salary while at Uni. In response I pointed out that that applies to all undergraduates not just teachers and furthermore newly qualified teachers in Scotland leave with less debt than their counterparts in England.
Where did I say teachers were strike mad? They went on strike in the 1980s. Since then they have threatened industrial action on a regular basis whether in pay negotiations or, as in the case I mentioned, attempting to get rid of unit assessments.
I did not imply teaching was relatively easy. I quoted other example(s) to show that teachers are not in a unique situation as they try to make out – or at least their vocal Union reps and the more militant of their colleagues.
And for the record, I was a teacher in Secondary Schools, I was a Teaching Fellow in University and I am a Scientist. So I know something of what I speak.
Thepnr – although I’m not seeing any number of new tweets at the top of his tl.
No new tweets on Stu’s twitter on my tablet. However, it updates itself so I don’t get a message that there are new tweets. Nothing since a rather rude and nasty individual called woke bane or similar.
@TJenny
Yeah maybe, I’ve just logged out of windows and into Linux to se if that makes a difference and it seems to have as now I see 3 new tweets and they are tweets. Hmmm?
One day in the near future, we will look back at the failures of a union which divided an island, which could have lived in harmony, but for the delusional grandeur of one part.
There will be many who have passed on the road to our Independence, who in our hearts will be always be there. When the time comes we will raise a glass to celebrate and remember the ones who never gave up and the ones who passed.
Sorry for the heavy post, Very bad news today.
Woah, Mike Dailly having a right go at Leonard, referring to Leonard’s time in GMB, and saying “sold them down the river”.
See, that’s who members should be pursuing. It beggars belief that so many women have been gullible and lost 2 days wages.
I used to be dismissive of Slab under Dugdale, couldn’t be bothered with them. Under Leonard, I’m seething at this orchestrated SNP bad shitshow.
It would be too much to expect Labour to actually take on the Tories, either here or down South, it seems.
Speaking from experience I am nearly 70 years of age I would have been diagnosed as autistic in the new primary 1 testing, however away back then in the early 1950’s no one had heard of Autism or Asperger! I was fortunate in a way even though I went to school at 4 years of age, a mistake as I had trouble speaking until I was 7.
My parents did inquire at the time as my older brother was very fluent and had a advanced vocabulary by the time he was 3 years of age, but back then the the doctors dealing with me passed it off as shyness and laziness. Primary school for me was a nightmare. Meantime at he age of six my Uncle bought my older brother (9) and I some Revell airplane kits, soon I was addicted to Airfix kits (as they were more available), that helped me immensely though I did not know it at the time!
At secondary school I did very well, on looking back my peer group could be best described as nerds, I am sure now that most of them were on the spectrum, we were all in the top class, Scotland by the way has the highest rates of autism anywhere in the world, hence the Scotland the nation of Inventors.
I left school and went into precision engineering eventually ended up as section leader in the design engineering department. Engineering attracts lots of autistic folk it is in a way a natural place for them, numbers and logic and that sort of stuff.
Recently I spoke to a teacher about autism as my grandson has many of my traits although she had an understanding of Asperger but on the other hand did not fully comprehend the wide spectrum that exists within autism. As this teacher was not straight out of college I was more than dismayed at her dismissal of my personal experience and that of my concerns about my grandson.
Still as they say there are good plumbers and not so good plumbers, and that my fellow wingers is heehaw to do with the Scottish Government. That is my confession for the day !
@yesindyref2
It would take me a long time to write down everything that autism is and isn’t and most people think of it like the Rainman movie but that’s only a microscopic part of what it means
I will say however that teachers cannot learn it and cope with it by having a course on it but there is one tenent that holds true, first understand that you know nothing and proceed from there with care and you have a chance of a positive outcome or at least might do no harm
I have a granddaughter who knows everything and I mean everything at the Stephen Hawking Sheldon Cooper level of everything but she cannot cope with general life because it doesn’t fit with everything she understands it should be and why isn’t it
Can you imagine having to go to school every day being surrounded by pupils and teachers who in her mind are the level of microbes
Then cry about it in deep depression when you come home because you’re different and nobody’s listening because you’re a nut job according to them because the rest of us can’t cope with a child who’s smarter than we are and she has to wait till she’s an adult to be accepted
It’s hard enough just being 15 without having all that landed on you as well
I won’t go on about it because it’s a difficult and sore subject for me because I’m so directly involved in it, just to say that I spoke of one child but she has a twin with completely different aspects of the same problem
I will add they are my complete joy and nightmare simultaneously
@James Barr Gardner
Thank you for your story James
link to mobile.twitter.com
This labour eejit trying to make todays EiS march an anti SNP rally
As for the not so good about the Union in my own personal case. I’ll start just months before my apprenticeship was finished.
It was 1980 and the yard was facing closure under Thatcher ideology, in fact it was certain to be closed and all that remained was for the government to do a deal with the unions over the redundancy package. Basically that was it, we had lost.
Negotiations were ongoing between the shop stewards and the government officials but there was NO representation specifically for apprentices and we weren’t happy about that.
The redundancy money was less important than “finishing your time” so we demanded a voice at these meetings. I ended up being that voice, not because I asked for it but because I was asked to do it.
Anyway I found myself at the most important meeting the stewards had ever held and with the very top management of British Shipbuilders. We’re all sat in the boardroom around a big Oak table maybe 40 people in total.
I’m sat right next to the convener of the Boilermakers Union who were the most powerful at that meeting, he made me sit there and before the meeting started he told me.
“You keep you mouth shut and don’t speak unless I ask you to”.
So I did and I listened to everything and not one word was said about the fate pf the apprentices and that was the end of the meeting.
But it wasn’t, I got the last word and asked the head of British Shipbuilders “What about the apprentices? We want guarantee about finishing our time”.
He mumbled that they would do everything in their power to place apprentices with other companies blah blah blah. In the end though this did turn out to be true but for different reasons.
Anyway that’s my first grumble about the unions, I have more for later as this is just the start.
@James Barr Gardner
Loved your post. Cheers 🙂
@Dr Jim
Loved your post too. Amazing that both you and James share the same experience. I love this place where we are all the same.
Legerwood says:
27 October, 2018 at 11:50 pm
Tinto Chiel @ 10.57 pm
And for the record, I was a teacher in Secondary Schools, I was a Teaching Fellow in University and I am a Scientist. So I know something of what I speak.
————-
BOOM
for the record, i support the teachers demands, but dont support anyone who associates in any way with slab or the tu’s.
you lie down with dogs ……….etc.
more fool you
“And for the record, I was a teacher in Secondary Schools, I was a Teaching Fellow in University and I am a Scientist. So I know something of what I speak.”
@Legerwood,
“Where did I say teachers were strike mad? They went on strike in the 1980s. Since then they have threatened industrial action on a regular basis whether in pay negotiations or, as in the case I mentioned, attempting to get rid of unit assessments.”
And this is 2018, so it kind of makes my point. As for unit assessments, read my above comments on my experiences.
Regarding the above and the rest of your comments (for the record):
I was only the first of those (secondary teacher) for 37 years and in all my years of my comments on Wings I have never felt the need to come out of the closet, despite being head of a big secondary department for 22 of those, but I feel I know somewhat of what I speak too and I really should be saying nothing more to spare the rest of Wings Scotland, ‘cos I think we will never agree on these matters.
Much as I loathe how BLiS______d have controlled unions in the past, if you don’t stand up for your workers’ rights, you can expect to be flattened. Thatcher persuaded people that unions were Very Bad, so people stopped joining and therefore weakened the power of collective bargaining. Then workers with no rights to resist zero hours contracts, reduced national insurance contributions, maternity rights, sick pay und so weiter were exploited further, yet some complained about the overweening power of unions. D’oh.
The Lanarkshire EIS (for example) used to have a proud marching banner of John Maclean’s picture thereon but I’m pretty sure he would be disgusted at the Britnat motives of its leaders today. He was a true educator and principled, egalitarian Scot before anything else and he died for his beliefs.
Anyhow, best wishes and may your God (if applicable) go with you.
You should never judge a book by its cover.
Just thought I’d pop that in for no reason whatsoever.
“Just thought I’d pop that in for no reason whatsoever.”
@Thepnr: ditto. It’s late, so I’ll give you this, without recourse to O/T…
link to youtube.com
Much as I loathe how BLiS______d have controlled unions in the past,………….
they still do.
however much you justify the need for trade unions, you cannot escape the simple fact that today, teachers were labour stooges.
fact. the tu’s care nothing about any workers in scotland. they serve only to promote slab at the expense of the snp and the wider yes movement.
strike action and pay disputes need the support of the general population.
teachers lost a great deal support they might have had in the yes movement.
hence this thread
the fact that some posters on this thread think that the trade unions organised todays march in support of teachers just illustrates how delusional people can be
Look. Peace and harmony breaks out in the ME. Putin, Merkel, Erdogan and Macron hold hands in Istanbul.
UK and USA not there. May only holds hands with Trump.
link to on.rt.com
some tweets from teachers
Laura BG
?
@LBG88
12h12 hours ago
More
At the eis teacher march. I support a pay rise and my colleagues but pretty sure this is a Labour/Union anti SNP rally.
Dorothy Bruce Retweeted
AlexCharles
?
@alexwales48
5h5 hours ago
More
Just a thought people. SNP take over leadership of GCC and agree on equal pay, unions call for strike. SNP lift public sector cap and offer teachers a raise of between 5% and 11%, unions call strike. Is it just me or is this a BIG coincidence, or is it playing politics.
Joanne Logan
?
@jojohalogan
2h2 hours ago
More
Replying to @one_mrs_k @ayeoot
I’m glad you’ve said this. Like you I’m a teacher with NASUWT. Plucking 10% out of thin air is bonkers but when I asked EIS members where it came from I get abrupt responses. Public opinion will go against us on this and I don’t think this is the way to go.
not everyone is so gullible tho
?
@Tinto Chiel
Settles back, listens and put the feet up…
@ Schrodinger’sC: “Strike action and pay disputes need the support of the general population.”
In which case, there would have been very few of these, ever. Not really much solidarity in the work-place for other workers. Obvious highly-respected exceptions, such as nurses, don’t do it because of their difficult life or death situation. Even doctors went on strike in England last year, though.
“Teachers lost a great deal support they might have had in the yes movement.” What support or lack of it? Too early to say. How do you know? They’re not on strike yet and I wonder if they will choose that path.
“fact. the tu’s care nothing about any workers in scotland.”
Almost certainly true, SC. So what are workers supposed to do to protect their rights?
Asking for a friend.
Your essential weekend reading:
The GMB – A Cockney Clique: link to wp.me
‘The First Man’ – a review: link to wp.me
@Thepnr: thought you might like it, you old groover but keep those baffies on.
Had to stay up to pick up my cousin from the airport, so enjoy.
Bonsoir, mes braves.
My friends, I’m just in from a terrific night out with my friends. Check the time on this post.
For the avoidance of any doubt, I consider Tinto’s daughter and her colleagues to be the salt of the earth.Whether they were worth a 7 year catch up that Flanagan is pitching is neither here or there, he and the Red Commie Militant Union Leaders are hell bent on destroying Scotland in the wake of Brexit.
I have typed this several times. time for bed.
Tinto, I value our blethers, believe you me.
A demain.
Gary 45% @ 12,02 am
Are you ok? Whatever it is, thinking of you.
Unions are not the problem , the problem in the unions is the same within the current liebour party , it is the conniving , self serving , disruptive power grabbers that are the problem . Labour and the unions have been HIJACKED over a lengthy period by people who have no interest in their members ,they are only fixated on money and power hence the big business approach to profit through selling services
Working people need unions to collectively protect against abuse and exploitation by businesses or organisations whose only concern is maximising profits , unfortunately in MANY instances like this one and the equal pay situation the membership is being dragged along by persons and being manipulated for purely political point scoring
When we are independent I would hope that unions and the current labour party will be disbanded and new ones formed to represent Scottish people’s interests with the current incumbents persona non grata
I can’t think of a tune to play in OT but I can post a few links re. collective bargaining. Sorry for the length of post.
link to www2.le.ac.uk
Collective bargaining has been decentralised in the UK and Germany over the past three decades. But in Germany, unions have retained much more power.
link to blogs.lse.ac.uk
GUSTO paper
Collective bargaining and the changing governance of hospitals:
A comparison between United Kingdom, Italy and France
link to warwick.ac.uk
It will be easier to change the institutional and political structures that collective bargaining is carried out in, than changing those that do the bargaining. Changing cultural practice is possible but will take time, building a more equitable society won’t happen over night. While we’re waiting to get started though, let’s take head of an academic from one of the former colonies. Spliter!
link to scholarship.law.berkeley.edu
Collective bargaining structure and its determinants
An empirical analysis with British and German establishment data
doku.iab.de/discussionpapers/2005/dp1605.pdf
WORKSHOP
Evolution of Collective Bargaining in Troika Programme and Post-Programme
Member States
link to europarl.europa.eu
The only way for teachers and everyone else to get a higher wage to what they are worth is to vote for Independence. £Billions are going from Scotland’s resources and taxes raised to fund the corruption at Westminster. £Billions are taken from Scotland for illegal wars, financial fraud and tax evasion. Monies which could be spent improving essential services etc.
The unionists at Westminster have secretly and illegally ruined the Scottish budget for years to line their and their cronies pockets. The UK now one of the most unequal countries in the world. In the most illegal actions of lies and corruption. Anyone who listens to them or is used by them is a complete contradiction of rational thought.
£Billions from Scotland goes illegally to the ignorance of the Westminster unionists and their Parties to be used illegally and irrational to be totally wasted. These funds could be used to fund better wages and conditions in Scotland and to grow the economy instead of London S/E. A feast of manipulation of Scottish resources and taxpayers monies, disappearing south,
Trident, illegal wars, the worse migrant crisis since the 11WW, tax evasion, financial fraud, cuts to NHS, Education and Welfare. Wasteful spending on Hinkley Point, HS2 of total no value. Thesecwill damage the Scottish economy badly deliberately from the Westminster unionist Gov. Illegally cutting the Scottish budget for years with policies not suited to the Scottish economy but to London S/E and the corrupt Westminster Parliament. Unequal and i democratic. The lies and uuntruths hidden under the Official Secrets Act. Iraq, Dunblane and Lockerbie.
Illegal cuts to Scotland’s budget. Now amounts to £3Billions+ year. That is only cuts to the Barnett Formula block grant. On average £4Billion taken from Scottish revenues to pay for loans not borrowed or spent in Scotland but elsewhere. Tax evasion £3Billion UK tax Laws not enforced.
£4Billion? a year in lost Oil & Gsx revenues because of illegal Tory taxes ruining the industry. Increased even more because more has to be imported. Putting up the UK deficit and the debt. Much higher in the rest of the UK. Scotland’s deficit is much much lower because Scotland imports and exports are balance. On a much more balanced economy.
Scotland can borrow and spend very little to grow the economy but has it’s budget cut by Westminster illegally and irrationally by the Westminster unionist Gov. Losing £Billions every year. Added up £20Billion on average. Scotland pays more for fuel and energy because it is colder. Despite being in surplus and nearer the source. The unit price should be 10% lower in Scotland. The energy companies considered this but were prohibited by Westminster unionists,
Teachers and other workers should look into these facts and not play into the hands of Unionists Parties who have cut the UK education budget by £6Billion a year and betrayed promises to student etc. The Scottish Gov has to mitigate these circumstances and does but it is extremely difficult with not enough powers. Do not be led up the garden path by Unionist/Green Parties liars. They seek to destroy the Scottish economy with their lies. Stand up for Scotland and your jobs by not being taken in.
@J collatin 1.45: no problems, Jack. Apologies for all my tiresome blethers and havers. I’m glad at least one of us had a good night 😛
May The Force be with you. I’m still recovering from the shock of the frost and the airport parking so moftaemapit.
@ Tinto, always suspected U wurnae jist scruff kid! Good post!
Blasphemy has been struck off from its hallowed place in the Irish Constitution bejasus!!!
@yesindyref2 says: 27 October, 2018 at 10:59 pm:
” … But they shouldn’t be striking for more pay, they should be striking for being paid for the hours they work,”
Indeed so and they should be striking against their employer and that employer, in this instance, is Glasgow Council.
The point being that the SG is not their paymaster – their local council is. So it is Glasgow Council taxpayer’s who must foot the bill.
If not them then the next happening will be every other Labour council that also underpaid their female staff will be claiming the same deal from the Scottish Government who get their funding from the Block Grant and would have to make cuts elsewhere.
In any case the Local Council cannot settle the dispute until they get certain data information and that means no amount of strikes will hurry up the payments to the poor woman called out on strike by their union.
Now ask yourself who is it dragging their feet by NOT expediting the release of the needed data?
This has the sticky fingerprints of Tricky Dicky Leonard and his union all over it.
“fact. the tu’s care nothing about any workers in scotland.”
Almost certainly true, SC. So what are workers supposed to do to protect their rights?
Asking for a friend.
————
fair point, but the answer most certainly isnt jumping into bed with slab
it is counter productive and loses much good will from at least half the population, as the tweets i posted highlighted.
———-
Ken500 says:
The only way for teachers and everyone else to get a higher wage to what they are worth is to vote for Independence
——–
correct, although i believe the deal on offer is comparable to that which the nurses and police recieved and much better than their counterparts in england are being offered
————
twathater says:
28 October, 2018 at 2:21 am
Unions are not the problem
————————
as you subsequently point our it is the people in the tu’s who are the problem. they are uk wide organisations and will never support the snp, only unionist parties. as such, they are a problem for us and will always be our opposition.
snp/yes supporters hand in hand with these tu’s will always be a difficult relationship
Explosive Story in The National
link to thenational.scot
Yet another anti SNP rant from Michael Glackin in Sunday Times Business section, does he not write about anything else.
Meanwhile is it true that under Labour Wales the public sector pay cap is 1%?
I see the eis is lining up the next bunch of sacrificial lambs to strike against the bad snp government. At the same time the herald attacks salmond and sturgeon with leakwd e mails
All security services seem to be worki f in unison
These peoe deserve to have a conservative government
@schrodingers cat says: 28 October, 2018 at 8:28 am:
… “fact. the tu’s care nothing about any workers in scotland.”
Almost certainly true, SC. So what are workers supposed to do to protect their rights?
Asking for a friend.
The SNP, and indeed all political parties, are in the same beat in one respect. Rank & file member apathy to attending branch meetings. Just about anyone can get themselves into branch office by turning up with a seconder and a bunch of members in support. Then they vote out a branch office holder and put their own person into the vacancy.
I went through the old Electrical & Plumbing Trade union battle to rid the union of Communists who had done just that to infiltrate the union. It took time and determination but the commies were thrown out.
The SNP, is rather better in that the members make policy but if members do not attend branch meetings branches can get infiltrated.
So the answer for the members is to expunge the likes of Tricky Dicky, who are quite simply their enemies. The members, not the branch officials are the union and those Branch officials are, in theory, the members paid servants but in today’s set-up they are their leaders/masters who have made bloody sure they have no problems with pay awards.
So actually the same fault that sees members marching against their better interests is apathy and ignorance. Now remember ignorance does not mean stupid it simply means they don’t know and, in these cases that ignorance is due to apathy.
The Scottish education system is one of the best in the world. The teachers are obviously a major part in that. Most of them are absolutely brilliant, kind and caring. Appreciated all around and doing more than an excellent job. Kudos goes to everyone. You know who you are. Absolutely brilliant.
It makes people want to greet at you bravery, undying love and support you give to everyone. The sacrifices that you make every day. Wonderful, wonderful people. It is not all rosy of course. Or par for the course. Maybe 5% bad apples which can be very difficult to get rid, You know who they are? There are profession stardards and relevant complaint can have a bearing.
The changes in the education system over the last ten years especially with addition needs etc. have been revolutionary. Even exceptional in the Society as a whole. Within the education system these needs are being met and brought forward as the norm. There is now increased recognition and training. There could be even more, of course. That is no speculation. Most schools are happy industrious, lively places. A joy. Extremely well run with love and appreciation. Thanks to the dedicated teachers.
The ConDems in 2010 elected to protect Education cut both. Education £6Billion a year and NHS £4Billion a year. They betrayed the electorate. Then a Brexit campaign of utter desperation and disillusionment. A travesty of injustice. The cruel and nasty aspect of a malicious and coarse nasty UK Gov who care nothing about the people and citizens they are supposed to support. They only care about themselves.
The UK is now one of the most extreme, unequal, unhappy and divided places in the world. People are now absolutely raging, and no wonder. At the damage being done to the UK and world economy by the absolutely shocking unionist plebs at Westminster. The EU matters took down Thatcher, it will also take down May and her and her appalling administration. It could all erupt in violence. If they are not gone soon. People forget or do not know of the violence of the Thatcher years, Now returning in the cruelty of the May administration. It will all end in tears. Hopefully soon before more harm can be done,
Teachers have to be aware of this situation and not let themselves be pawns in the unionist political games which ultimately will have a detrimental affect on the Scottish economy and ultimately their and others wages.
There would be plenty of money in the pot in Scotland if it was not because of the unionist politicans and others trying to ruin the Scottish/UK/world economy. Or create the most unfair and unequal place in the world. The divided in every way UK. Governed by consummate appalling individual of totally lying crooked unionists Parties. Breaking the Laws thst they make at every opportunity to line their pockets of illegal gains. They are despicable in every way.
The teachers have to watch they are not taken in and used and betrayed. It is unionist Councils who keep class sizes too high and try to cut the allocated budget. Instead to be spent in an absolute load of nonsense. Unionists council who collude and do not fund education and essential services properly. They blow their budget on grotesque monstrosity if no value. No one wants. Instead of pedestrianisation and open spaces.
Ruining City centres of grotesque empty offices and shops. Sitting all around empty. Two job Tories keeping them in power of total appalling management of public funds. Borrowing and spending like there is no tomorrow. £1.2Billion in debt and not property funding education and essential services. Trying to cut the education allocated budget to waste even more,The only ones in the way, trying to stop this carry on are the SNP (in collusion with some aware unionists). Pity there are so few of them.
Aberdeen/shire. The electorate see what you are doing. Sycophants. Of course moaning all the while of lack of funding. A total lie going by the wasteful unneeded monstrosities of no value ruining the skyline. All around sitting empty. A collosal mismanagement.
The teachers will get the rise they are due.They could get even more if Scotland was Independent Along with others and pensions etc which could be raised. Poverty eradicated etc. Monies spent on essential services and not people bombing the world to bits. Or ruining the UK/world economy by corruption at Westminster. Brexit. An appalling lack of judgement criminal and corrupt in it’s intent. Complete and utter badness.
What has the UK become because of Westminster unionist corruption of governance. Thank goodness for the SNP Gov standing up for Scotland. In the midst of one of the worst administration ever at Westminster trying to bring down the world economy for their personal gain.
Teachers can be seen leaving at 3.30 pm getting into their four by fours. Arriving at 8.30am. The SNP has invested £Millions/Billions in the education system in Scotland. After the NHS. Education funding is the top priority. £Millions is now being invested in expanding nursery education and invested in early learning sector. Employing more staff. Being recruited and trained right now. Children given health lunches etc. Additional needs being identified and proper support given
More training does still needs to be invested in. If it wa not for unionist mismanaged council budgets trying to cut essential services. For monies to be spent in total nonsense. It is the unionist Parties way. Illegally and secretly taking resources from Scotland in the most malicious undemocratic way.
Ditto the unionists parties and the unionist Councils in Scotland. They are not benevolent people. People join the unionist Parties for what they can get. They join the SNP for what they can give, especially in Scotland. Westminster tries to break Internstional Law with impunity. The UN (human rights) authorities constantly given judgement against the unionist Westminster Parliament.
Just as well the SNP has formidable able politicians and a majority. Where would Scotland be without them.
Alex Salmond has been treated extremely badly. How will the NE/Scotland the world image manage without him. It just puts folk in despair of the unionist political system and the electoral deficiencies. The Westminster administration that does not support democracy.
Everything Scotland has become is Alex Salmond. He gets things done. The AWPR, the Queensferry Brudge, the Glasgow Hospital. The Borders railways. The mitigation of public services. The hew houses built. Putting Scotland on the map. The good financial management. The finding the McCrone Report, The standing up for Scotland. The IndyRef nearly won and can be won again. All Alex Salmond. Nicola abd Co. Alex Salmond laid the ground work for all these improvements. How will the NE/Scotland manage without him. Even for a wee while. He has millions of friends and supporters who do not believe a word of the nonsense or the circumstances. Including millions of women. Who adore him. Friends in high places. This tawdry business must be concluded expediently or else.
All the teachers should watch out for being politically manipulated by people with not their best interests at heart. Teachers are required to be non political or biased, Most teachers are aware of it. They are talented abd well trained. Even more are queuing up to do it as an occupation.So it can’t be all bad. Oversubscribed applications. Most teachers are extremely happy at their jobs or so many claim. It must depend on certain areas and council policies. They are well trained so can apply for other occupations or easily retrain if it does not suit.
Good luck with your pay claim but please, please do not throw the baby out with the bath water. To lead to propaganda and complaint of the best and most effective Gov that Scotland has ever had since 1928 and before. It will just screw up the education system and economy and Scotland. Learn from past mistakes, Thanking you in anticipation. You always do the right thing in any case, Do not let the community down. You are worth every penny and more.
The best is that many teachers are aware of the political situation. The extremes and the idiocy of the Westminster unionists trying to be smooth operators. They are not. Just evil manipulators. . Despised for good measure by all. The shambles and appalling mess they are making at Westminster is obscene.
Many teachers in Scotland have reviewed the political system since 1928 and before and support the SNP and Independence for Scotland, They vote SNP/SNP. They vote for Ibdependence. In fact many of them in Universities etc have researched the facts which draw to the conclusion of inequality and injustice of the UK governance. The unequal divide caused UK Gov. The appalling behaviour of the Westminster unionist politicians, The appalling, unfair Westminster unionist propaganda and control of the MSM and the Press. The university researchers identify it. The Universities are being screwed by Brexit.
The Universities excellence research it all and give their conclusions. They are mainly totally altruistic and want a better world. Except for Oxbridge financed 2000 to 1 of others. Where the ultra wealthy buy an education then try to destroy the world. Perpetuate the class system and are not very bright. Something such be done about making it more diversified and equal. To stop using taxpayers money to try to destroy the world.
What really pisses me off about the British State is that they are quick enough to criticise other countries about killing their own, but not so quick to criticise themselves. #HypocriticalFucks.
There is an animal called a Judas Goat,
link to tinyurl.com,
this animal is used by herdsmen/shepherds to go out and gather the herd/flock (who will follow because they think it is one of their own and they trust it)and deliver the herd/flock to the slaughter house,
this also works with supposedly intelligent humans,
the herdsman/shepherd are the British Labour party,
the Judas Goat are the unions,
and the simple minded trusting herd/flock are the teachers.
“ITV’s flagship breakfast news show broke strict broadcasting rules on accuracy and impartiality during an interview with Nicola Sturgeon, according to regulator Ofcom. “
The damage is done though! They ambushed Nicola with an extract from a right wing analysis not the original SG publication. Then wouldn’t let her correct them.
link to thenational.scot
Will Nicola be given a similar slot in their programme now to comment uninterrupted? Will there be an apology and explanation taking up the same time as the offence? No chance.
This is a BritNat technique. Andrew Neill is particularly notorious for it. Make a completely incorrect statement pretending it is indisputable fact, then pose a question based on that. The person being interviewed tries to dispute the basis for the question, then the interviewer keeps interrupting saying the question is not being answered. Nasty and underhand.
@Sinky says: 28 October, 2018 at 8:38 am:
Explosive Story in The National
link to thenational.scot
There’s something fishy here, Sinky.
There is a long standing claim to the affect that an Intensive Care nurse had disputed the official reports many, many years ago but with the same result now coming from official sources.
There is also evidence from a vehicle recovery driver that the car was first removed on the instructions of the Police but then returned and NOT placed in the same place it was recovered from.
These old reports were still on the internet last time I did a check up on them. Not that long ago. I have followed the case from when the news first broke of Willie being reported as dead and commented about A & E nurse’s claim on Wings before.
Aberdeen/shire equal pay was settled years ago by a SNP coalition administration. SNP/LibDems. Before the Libdems became unionist manipulators of the worst kind. Colluding with the Tories to destroy the Scottish/UK/world economy. Totally letting down the electorate with lies and broken promises to line their own pockets and cause misery all around. What have the LibDems become. Charlatans and liars only out for personal gains.
Clegg the appalling cowardly liar now working for Zuckerberg for £Millions trying to destroy democracy and the world economy. For appalling greed and money as crooked as they come. Suckerman could end up in jail in the States. If there is any justice,
The criminal Clegg can join him. Breaking every Law on the Planet. Destroying the Planet. No lower form of life. Draining the resources for his illegal manipulated gain. Causing poverty and misery all around for illegal profits. An appalling human being with obviously psychological problems which have not been dealt with because of ignorance abd arrogance of the shareholders who will lose in the end. If there is any justice in the world.
@rp
So actually the same fault that sees members marching against their better interests is apathy and ignorance. Now remember ignorance does not mean stupid it simply means they don’t know and, in these cases that ignorance is due to apathy.
————————
I think that is true of many of those marching yesterday, but not all.
there are wingers on this thread who marched (and who supported the marchers) but are fully aware of the duplicity of the tu/slab but marched all the same.
to them i would merely point out the counter productivity of such actions. you lost support from a large part of the population, teachers in general and other teachers in tu’s
this is what i am seeing on twitter.
@Robert Peffers
@Sinky
Macrae
I have always though it odd that a suicide shot to the temple would have been missed by everyone for such a long time.
However as it now claimed, the wound was at the back of the head, being missed makes more sense.
What’s the betting there are no medical records or X-rays in existence?
Some thoughts
There are twice as many teachers per pupil in Scotland as there are in England.
Scottish teachers are better paid than English teachers.
What other budget gets cut to give well paid teachers a pay rise when UK austerity is cutting Scotland’s budget?
People are dying in the streets as benefits are slashed
Greedy,greedy, greedy
I was a graduate teacher for much of my working life.
The general population don’t have a lot of sympathy for teachers.
They’ll have less now.
Three cheers for all the teachers here and all over the online media telling the truth.
Andrew Neil is part of the cesspit propaganda. The Union has made him a £MultiMillionaire. He will destroy any truth for money. Manipulated statistics. Usually done by incompetents. An agent provocateur, Thatchers henchman. Greedy and corrupt beyond redemption. Dimbleby along with most of the BBC, and the rest. Total provocative propaganda which can be discounted in a few minutes with research abd a bit of knowledge on the internet.
I’m a trade union member with Unite.
I will be contacting them to ask the question:
Why didn’t the Union support the Glasgow Council workers equal
pay claims over a period spanning almost 20 years?
The only reason for taking action now is because the SNP have taken control of the council for the first time in history.
So are Unite proving themselves to be anti Scottish Independence, are they against any of England’s colonies being free to control their own economy and future?
Will they now attack the Irish Republic Trade Unions for not being under the control of English political parties?
They could then attack Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, Indian, Kenyan, Cypriot, Maltese, etc etc.
My long term membership goes in the bin if I don’t get a reasoned reply.
(Please note that Labour gets No levy from my contributions)
Give the teachers 25 days leave 15 during the summer 10 over the winter. I’m not so bad however as I would allow some public hols and in-service training days allow them to dress down and leave at 3pm.oops got that one already!
They get the same increase as a social worker or other council workers. The benefits? Parents don’t have additional care costs, teachers recognise that people in public and private sectors are also overworked and stressed. Next college and university lecturers.
EIS and other trades unions you political shenanigans are noted.
Huh! Who knew?
link to twitter.com
@AidanKerr___
More Aidan Kerr Retweeted Susan Quinn
Incredible show of opposition to the SNP government on Glasgow’s streets.
————–
do you still think going on this march was a good idea?
Does anybody else feel worried about the tone of the reports in The National re – the equal pay business and the EIS rally – they give the impression of being supportive of what the unions are doing?
Gus1940
Agree. Maybe too middle classy type socialists. You know the type — become labour MP’s in due course or EIS reps.
Labour missed out on the Police, then they missed out on the SNHS because the SNP dealt with that fairly and those workers are happy so Labour dived in quick to get the council workers and the teachers before the SNP could make them happy too but without the votes of pensioners Corbyn and Leonard can win nothing
So when’s the pensioner march for 10% increase coming, I wonder when the demands will come for Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP to top up pensions
*using the powers* that of course they don’t have
Wouldn’t surprise me
Brewer’s having a laugh. Adonis. Mr HS2 to ruin the Scottish economy, especially the NE.
Stop trolling Scotland please BBC.
Popular front – Labour? Lying stinking 50 years
More propaganda and hypocrites from steak eaters.
If they had their way. Scotland would be empty of people but full of animals. Only Devolution had stopped it.
The population of Scotland has stagnated since 1928 because of Westminster centralised polices taking £Billions out of Scotland. Only Devolution has increased it.
A novice reporter misreporting about Scotland. Bravo Brewer the Labour/unionists. Cheap reporting.
More on the nature of collective bargaining and the potential for it’s improvement. I’m pro-workers rights, btw, but I’m also a bit of an anti-Communist.
link to unige.ch
Corporatism
link to researchgate.net
link to onlinelibrary.wiley.com
nicola should stand her ground and tell slab, the wheel tappers and shunters and the teachers to fuck off.
the deal proposed is on the table till wedneday, after which it will be withdrawn and negotiations suspended for 6 months.
maybe the next time the teachersss march, the yes movement could organise a counter “anti greedy bastard” demo at the same time
do the teachers on this thread still think it was a good idea to suck up to slab?
The Fraser of Allander is a Labour/unionist association like the BBC and Brewer.
Not over coming the real overall situation. Of vast £Billions going from Scotland
The appalling decisions of the Westminster unionist Gov.
Turn the not needed shops into homes.
Condem. Cuts from 2015 to 2020+ NHS £4Billion a year. (£20Billion) Education cut £6Billion a year. (£30Billion) Welfare cut £3Billion a year over 6 years. £18Billion.
The UK tax revenues have increased from £533Billion in 2015/16. To £628Bilion in 2016/17. (Plus another £92Billion of income. Is that included?) UK Gov accounts.
In other words there was never a need for austerity. At all ever. Sanctioning and starving people to death. Absolutely appalling. The evil Westminster unionists. Disgusting despicable behaviour.
Killing vunerable people they were supposed to support. Illegal wars, financial fraud and tax evasion.
Scotland always raised more in tax revenues pro rata.(spends less pro rata) £Billions are then taken secretly and illegally by Westminster unionist liars.
Scottish Gv had to mitigate all these cuts. While having it’s budget cut 10% a year. Illegally. £3Billion. Without the necessary information. Refused by the DWP. Westminster unionists.
Iraq, Dunblane and Lockerbie kept secret for 100 years.
A hundred thousand million times Nicola Sturgeon has offered co-operation and been rejected each and every time now the media are demanding she co-operate with Labour who only co-operate with the Tories because of their visceral hatred of the SNP for replacing them as the real peoples party
If only the media had a bigger arse to vanish up
After the releases of the past several days on Labour’s and the unions’ historic involvement on the issues, and their enmity of basically all things SNP. Is the content of Mr Kerr’s tweet really a surprise?
Of course it was all about nasty politics and bugger all to do with wage equality or wage stagnation. Politics being politics, I’d be stunned if they didn’t continue to agitate amongst those groups and many more for as long as they feel they can cause their political opposition damage. Because? That’s politics apparently.
End of the day though, and when they reckon their job is done? They’ve yet to solve those folks problems. They’ve yet to end inequality or UK wide economic wage stagnation. They didn’t with decades of absolute power and access and that’s the bottom line.
These folk do have a genuine grievance, but then so does most of the workforce across every field of employment the length and breadth of these islands. I doubt there’s many haven’t enjoyed a wage freeze of some description throughout the aftermath of the crash and all through the austerity legislation period.
Unless they’ve been sleeping under a bush for the past decade, Labour and the unions know the political and economic situation. They know what is current and what is projected.
Folk can make their own minds up as to whether their actions were politically motivated or not.
I think the Scottish Government has demonstrated a clear vision of progressive pay settlements. The first to break the 1 percent gap and fair rises for careers, police, nurses etc ( I know they deserve more…hence Independence).
I have little doubt about the rights of those in Glasgow fighting for equal pay (denied by Labour).
The EIS are obviously chanting demands that ANY employee after years of austerity cuts could make.
However it has now become very political and unfortunately not in the interest of the union members.
Therefore I will fully support the Scottish Government in standing their ground ( via the employing councils).
The BBC, the Trade Unions and Labour should not be allowed to make unrest in my country for politically motivated reasons.
A progressive pay settlement is on the table. It is a good one in my opinion and given the severe cuts to the Scottish Governments budget by Westminster I think it is amazing that that they can support such a deal.
Quote Zappa.
This is a song about the union friend,
how they f***ed you over and the way they bend,
the rules to suite a special view,
and you get spooched every time they do.
Hay, Hay, Hay,ah ha ha,
You know we gotta stick together,
Once upon a time the idea was good,
if only they done what they said they would,
it ain’t no better it’s making it worse,
the Labour movement got the mafia curse,
Hay, Hey, Hay, ah ha ah.
You know we got to stick together,
You know we got to stick together.
@Macart
Well said.
gus1940 @ 10:34 am
Yes, I do.
I have long had a suspicion that there are too many there who are sympathetic to the Rhea Wolfson Tendency, who – despite all the recent evidence – apparently still prefer to cosy up to the Corbynites than confront the reality of the latter’s resolute BritNattery.
But there is a secondary danger, so it could be that the paper is carefully playing a straight bat.
We can clearly see that the unions are (mis-)using workers to pursue a strategy of maximum disruption to the SG – the same strategy the Communists used in Eastern Europe in the late 1940s. It seems there were even a “large number” on the equal-pay march who, according to grousebeater @ 01:49, had their expenses paid and were bussed-up from England to swell the numbers.
However, we must be very careful not to stigmatise the very people who are being misused. They are the innocent pawns in this. There is a danger that an over-reaction could offend them and cause fragmentation of support for independence. The old divide-and-conquer beloved of the BritNat.
We are really all in this together, and have to stick together till we see it through. The core problems can only be truly tackled when the BritNats and their trickery have been shown the door, and we are truly freed of the rod for our backs which is this damned mitigation.
Effijy 10.24
I hope you’ve put your question to them in exactly the way you put it upthread and that you told them in the event of a lame reply or no reply you’ll cancel your membership.
Please let us know what if any response you get
Ghillie@1’19am.
Yes I am fine, I got the dreaded phone call from the son of a friend who has basically been my mentor, the father I never had, the man who made me the person I am today and who steered me into my belief of an Independent Scotland. I have the chance to say my farewells to him this week, but it still came as a major shock. It looks like he wont get to see an Indy Scotland.
Thanks for the thoughts.
Labour, the new Tory Party
I’m very surprised Scottish colleagues are striking for a 10% pay rise. I’ve seen my pay drop about 15% in real terms over the last ten years. For most teachers in England this year’s pay rise will also be below the rate of inflation. In addition to that I’m paying more into my pension and will get it later and will get less.
Contrary to what has been said earlier teaching in England is no longer a graduate only profession due to academisation a policy along with free schools that has been ideologically driven, has resulted in poorer working conditions, criminal trials and a colossal waste of taxpayers money with no obvious improvement in pupils learning.
Recruitment and retention is a massive problem. Graduates are bribed with 25-30k to undergo teacher training courses but don’t have to stay in the profession, about 25% of new teachers quit within 3 years. Pay is part of the problem, workload, curriculum change, lack of support and bullying cultures all contribute.
Over the last decade I don’t think the Labour Party has really backed union calls for improvements to pay and conditions. I think most teachers in England would be delighted with two or three years where we got a pay rise above the inflation rate but 10% is cloud cuckoo land.I’ve no doubt teachers in Scotland deserve a decent pay rise but this just strikes me as political manipulation aimed at portraying the SNP in a bad light, haven’t seen any union down south demanding 10% nor any Labour support for such a move. Sorry for the long post but someone’s getting played.
@ Simon Curran – thanks for the insight about pay and conditions in England.
As I understand it, the EIS is demanding 10% across all grades whereas the SG is offering a range between 11% and 5% favouring the lower paid. Teachers in Scotland are paid more than those in England, plus they have social benefits such as free prescriptions and free higher education for their children.
The worst pay and conditions are apparently in Wales where Labour is in charge.
There is every sign that this is a case of political manipulation by the unionist Labour Party and EIS. Another dimension is the boycott of COSLA, the main Local Authority negotiating body, which some Labour dominated Councils now refuse to participate in.
All the signs point to an imminent extinction event, probably related to BREXIT, with Labour desperate to regain control in Scotland.