Dear Councillor,
Aberdeen Freeport
Aberdeen Trades Union Council (ATUC) is the collective voice of trade unions in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, and has affiliated branches representing tens of thousands of workers in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire.
We note that the Scottish Government issued an invitation for bids for ‘Greenports’ in early 2021, and at its meeting on 3 February 2021 Aberdeen City Council’s City Growth and Resources Committee instructed the relevant Chief Officer to work with the UK and Scottish Governments, the Harbour Board and all other stakeholders to conduct a feasibility study for a Freeport for the City Region and report back to the next meeting on 11 May 2021.
This follows the positive response of Aberdeen City Council in May 2020 to the UK Government consultation on Freeports, and the 2020 report of the Council’s Economic Policy Panel (on which there is not trade union representation) which noted that Council Officers had already been working “on the feasibility of a free port/enterprise model for the city region”.
A Freeport, or any enterprise, cannot function without workers and the implications for workers are fundamentally important to the design and principles behind a Freeport. We are disappointed that the Committee has not yet seen fit to communicate with ATUC, with a view to examining the implications of different Freeport models for workers. We remain ready and willing to work with Aberdeen City Council to do this, and in the interim wish to make a number of comments.
