Tuesday 23 July 2024
May Day March and Rally - standing in solidarity with comrades in struggle
Monday 29 April 2024
Rainy but very moving International Workers' Memorial Day ceremony
Despite the rain, the International Memorial Day (IWMD) ceremony in the beautiful surroundings of Persley Walled Gardens was well attended and very moving.
Wreaths were laid from many unions and organisations to remember all those who died at their work and to pledge to continue our fight for the living. The provost of Aberdeen laid a wreath on behalf of Aberdeen City Council whilst Kate Ramsden laid the wreath on behalf of ATUC.
We are grateful, as always to Norman Adam, ACC photographer for these photographs.
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Kate Ramsden lays wreath on behalf of ATUC |
Aberdeen City Council provost, David Cameron was the first to speak. He reminded us of the international context to the event and spoke of the importance of campaigning for workers’ health and safety not only in this country but also across the world, highlighting countries like Bangladesh where regulation is lax.
Thursday 25 April 2024
Care workers ask Scottish Government "Where are the missing millions!"
ATUC sends solidarity to social care workers from Unite, UNISON and GMB who today picketed the Scottish parliament demanding the return of the ‘missing millions’ cut from the Scottish Government’s Budget for social care workers.
Information from the Scottish Trades Union Congress’ ‘Missing Millions’ campaign has shown that £38 million of ringfenced funding for maternity, paternity and sick pay for social care workers in Scotland was secretly cut from the latest Scottish Government budget.
Workers protested outside the Scottish Parliament to demand the return of the cash, accusing the Scottish Government of “betraying” social care workers. ATUC delegate Paul King was amongst those protesting and features in this STUC video.
The ‘Missing Millions’ campaign was launched last week during STUC Congress. A Freedom of Information request has shown that the £38 million cut was pulled directly from the Scottish Government’s Fair Work in Social Care terms and conditions workstream in September 2023.
Join us at our May Day march and rally on 4 May
Please join us at our Aberdeen Trades Union Council May Day march and rally on Saturday 4th May 2024 to celebrate International Workers' Day.
Friday 19 April 2024
Join us at International Workers' Memorial Day and "remember the dead, fight for the living"
Representatives from the affiliated Trade Union branches of Aberdeen Trades Union Council, Action on Asbestos, Thompsons Solicitors and Aberdeen City Council will commemorate International Workers Memorial Day (IWMD) on separate events on Friday 26th and Sunday 28th April at the locations listed below.
The International Workers’ Memorial Day theme is to "remember the
dead, fight for the living."
Kathleen Kennedy, Vice-President of ATUC said, "On International Workers Memorial Day we pay our respects and remember all those who have lost their lives through a workplace accident or an industrial related disease.
"Whilst
we will always remember the dead, we reiterate our fundamental right and duty to fight for the living by ensuring that all workplaces are safe and healthier
to work in."
IWMD Aberdeen Events
Trade union councils centre stage at STUC Congress 2024
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Mike Arnott |
Mike gave an inspiring address to conference, in which he slammed cuts to councils. He also had a warning for our movement. "When it comes to equalities, unions must walk the walk as well as talk the talk and take a zero tolerance approach to all forms of discrimination and bullying, including where it takes place in our own movement." This theme was later picked up in our own motion to Congress.
In her speech to Congress STUC General Secretary, Roz Foyer
spoke of the key importance of the work of trade union councils, to co-ordinate
grassroots trade unionists and community activism at local level. She urged
affiliated unions to ensure their branches affiliate to their local TUCs.
A film was shown at conference showcasing the role of TUCs. Aberdeen TUC was represented through Kate Ramsden, who spoke of the excellent work of ATUC and called for more trade union activists to get involved as delegates from their union, especially young workers.
Aberdeen TUC was represented at Congress by Kathleen
Kennedy, (delegation leader) Scott Sutherland and Kate Ramsden.
All three of our original ATUC motions were debated and
approved and we were also delighted to second motions from UCU and Moray TUC.
Kate also spoke on the Social Care composite from UNISON. Reports of our
involvement are detailed below. Unfortunately, both our emergency motions were
ruled out of order for different reasons.
Time to get our house in order
#STUC24 Congress unanimously supported
a call from Aberdeen Trades Union
Council for trade unions and trade
union councils to practice what they preach on equalities.Kathleen Kennedy
The general council will work with equalities
groups urging them to report annually on equality statistics and aims and
targets to improve them if needed.
Moving the motion, Kathleen Kennedy told delegates that saying we are doing
equalities isn’t good enough.
“Let’s get real and prove we are doing it,” she
urged.
She said that checking back on ATUC’s 150 years
it’s clear that there have been only two women presidents and only two disabled
presidents.
“We need to get our own house in order,”
challenged Kathleen, calling for annual reporting of unions’ and TU councils’ equality
stats and targets for improvement.
Speakers from other unions supported our motion
making it clear that there is still a way to go across the TU movement on
gender equality and other equalities.