ATUC calls for support to keep Old Aberdeen Medical Practice under health-board control

Aberdeen Trade Union Council is deeply concerned at the proposal made by NHS Grampian and the City Health and Social Care Partnership's (ACHSCP) to put the management of Old Aberdeen Medical Practice and five other medical practices in Aberdeen out to tender to be taken over as a for-profit GP-led practice.

This means that they would be run for profit instead of being run by the health board.  All nine of the Old Aberdeen Medical Centre's G.P.s have now resigned and the practice is on the verge of collapse.

We are calling on ATUC delegates, associates, families and friends to go on and like and share the Facebook page 'Save Old Aberdeen Medical Practice' that would be appreciated https://www.facebook.com/saveOAMP.

Please also sign and share the petition on 38 degrees to Keep old Aberdeen Medical Centre. 

If your practice is Old Aberdeen you can contact the local MSP Kevin Stewart and appeal for him to intervene before Thursday when the IJB takes the decision to the next stage via 01224 624719 and Kevin.Stewart.msp@parliament.scot.  

Build solidarity for Richie Venton, sacked steward

 
Aberdeen Trades Union Council has already highlighted this appalling situation where shop steward, Richie Venton has been sacked by Ikea for legitimate trade union activities.

We have sent solidarity and support to Richie. Now, if you can, we are asking all delegates, associates, families and friends to join this online public meeting on Monday 26th October at 7pm to build solidarity across the trade union movement.

Please register for this event and take part if you can.

Please sign the petition calling on the Tory government to extend free school meals so children don't go hungry

 
Aberdeen Trades union Council is outraged that the UK Tory government has voted down a Labour proposal to extend free school meals to the school holidays.

We are urging all our delegates, associates, friends and families to sign this petition calling for an extension of free school meals into the school holidays. 

 http://chng.it/JQ89Vbxszb

The situation in Scotland is different but we want to raise our voice for children across the UK. It is a disgrace that children are starving in the sixth richest country in the world. The money is there - it is just the political will that is missing.

As the petiton states, children have a basic human right to have access to food. Denying them free school meals denies them this right. 

There are too many children going hungry. The Government's vote condemns children on free school meals to starve over the holidays. 

In the middle of a global pandemic where many families are on an even more reduced income, where many have lost their livelihoods, parents are working flat out to do everything in their power to feed their children and they are still not managing it. 

To make a child suffer for the shortcomings of our society is completely wrong. Taking away free school meals in the holidays, when these children need it the most is abhorrent.

Solidarity with Richie Venton sacked by Ikea for defending workers' rights - please sign the petition

ATUC sends our support and solidarity to Richie Venton, USDAW steward, sacked by IKEA for standing up for workers’ health and livelihoods in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic and for carrying out the duties that any decent elected trade union representative would. 

Please sign the petiton to reinstate Richie Venton and to demand wages for sick workers at Ikea.

Since February, Richie consistently argued that anyone off sick or self-isolating from the worst killer pandemic in a century should receive their full 100% average wage - not to be put on company sick benefit; not to be penalised with sick absence points; not to be excluded entirely from IKEA sick benefit for exceeding the points threshold, but to get their full average wages.

Richie argued this was essential to prevent workers facing an impossible choice of financial ruin on £95 a week Statutory Sick Pay or ruination of their health and that of others by dragging themselves into work, potentially infecting a workforce of 540 people.

When IKEA – who made £11.2bn profits in 2019 - announced that from 1^st June wages would be removed from workers absent due to COVID-19, Richie repeated this case and then informed union members who had elected me as their shop steward and convenor, of company plans and his opposition to these as their union representative.

For that Richie was sacked, on a trumped-up charge of “breach of confidentiality”.

This is Union victimisation, to clear the path to even worse attacks on the rights and conditions of IKEA staff. It’s no accident that Richie had built union membership to the highest level in any IKEA store in UK and Ireland; to more than twice the density of the second best-organised store. 

Sign the petition to ban all unpaid work trial periods

 
Aberdeen Trades Union Council is calling on delegates, associaltes and their families and friends to sign this petition calling for a ban on unpaid work trial periods.

Unpaid trial shifts are open to exploitation as they can be used by unscrupulous employers to take advantage of vulnerable people looking for a job. Often unpaid trials are for minimum wage jobs and the people applying for them cannot afford to work for free but may have no other option. 

Potential employees might feel as though they can't say no to these exploitative trials without risking their future livelihood. It is unfair to force someone to work for hours without pay for a job they might not even be given. Moreover, there is the cost of travelling to and from the trial shift as well as having to buy a uniform such as a shirt, trousers, plain t-shirt etc. These are things that unemployed people cannot afford to be wasting money on and shouldn't have to for a job that is unpaid. 

Please sign this petition

Please sign petition calling for an immediate end to the Israeli blockade on the people of Gaza

Aberdeen Trades Union Council continues its support for freedom and justice for Palestine by calling on all delegates, associaltes, families and friends to sign the petiton calling for an end to the long-standing blockade of Gaza by the government of Israel.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/308206 

The Gaza Strip has been under siege from Israel since 2007.  The impact of this siege, coupled with intermittent bombardments, has already had a disastrous impact on the physical and mental health of Palestinians in Gaza, as well as devastating the economy.  

In the past weeks this disastrous impact has once again been brought into sharp focus as Gaza has reported its first cases of COVID-19 which has started to spread quickly through refugee camps and communities. 

COVID-19 is uniquely threatening to the people of Gaza. The 1.8 million Palestinians cannot safely self-isolate – there simply isn't space – and no one can leave the region.

On top of that, Israel has not allowed sufficient medical supplies, including tests, to enter. It's a catastrophe waiting to happen.

After 13 years of conflict and blockade, Palestinians in Gaza face a severe shortage of resources and medical personnel. Health officials warn that containment and treatment under the Israeli blockade will be nearly impossible.

Together we are demanding that Parliament call on Israel to end the blockade NOW, before more life is needlessly lost.

The people of Gaza have for too long been abandoned by the international community, and the UK has a particular responsibility to act.  This petition calls on the UK government to confirm to us that they will show leadership and stand in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

Please sign the petition. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/308206

Sign the petiton against the "Brand Israel" Shalom event in Aberdeen and write to your MPs and MSPs

Following on from our previous post (see below), SPSC Aberdeen has started a petition to urge the Hilton Treetops Hotel to cancel the  “Shalom – A Taste of Israel” event, organised by the Confederation of Friends of Israel Scotland and StandWithUs UK, on Wednesday November 2^nd.

Please sign the Coordin8 letter here: http://bit.ly/2eOWiFW

Please also send a letter to Aberdeenshire MPs and MSPs, asking them to support Palestinian rights and oppose the 'Brand Israel' event: http://bit.ly/2dQJrGD

If the event is not cancelled the demo will go ahead on Wednesday 2nd November at 6pm, Hilton Treetops Hotel, Aberdeen (161 Springfield Road) Please get along if you can.

Please also sign both letters and share as widely as possible!!

Sign Hope not Hate's petition to keep nazi band out of Scotland

UPDATE: The concert was cancelled after huge outcry of protest against it taking place.

We have just heard that on Saturday 22nd October over 500 nazis will descend on a club in Falkirk to hear America’s most notorious white power band, Bound for Glory. It is scheduled to begin at 2pm and last till 10pm.

This has been changed from the original plan to hold the gig in Edinburgh.

This will be the largest white power concert ever to take place in Scotland. Coming only a month after police ‘allowed’ an Ian Stuart Donaldson gig in Cambridgeshire, attended by over 600 skinheads, it reflects a resurgence in interest in nazi music in the UK.

But we can stop this.

HOPE not hate is calling on the Home Secretary to refuse the band members entry to UK and for the Scottish Government to ban the gig. Sign the petition Please also write to your local MP and ask them to intervene. Bound for Glory (BFG) is the world’s leading white power band. The band members have a long history in the neo-Nazi movement, including active involvement with the two most notorious and hardline nazi networks, Hammerskins Nation and Blood and Honour.  BFG is dedicated to spreading its message of hate message overseas – after a previous attempt to play in the UK failed during the 1990s, the leader singer blamed a ‘Jewish-controlled government’. The band boasts: “All our music has a racial theme that is 100% White”. Stop these haters from playing in Scotland. Please sign the petiton to Home Secretary, Amber Rudd and write to your MP.

Say No to Jericho's Stolen Resources - Sign the petition today

Please sign and share this online petition at 38 Degrees from Scottish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign SPSC Aberdeen, calling on Union Square and Trinity Centre to distance themselves from the theft of resources and human right abuses by removing Jericho Cosmetics stalls from their premises.

The Dead Sea products company Jericho Cosmetics trades from stalls in Aberdeen’s Union Square and Trinity Centre. Their products are made with minerals illegally extracted by Israeli authorities from occupied Palestinian territories surrounding the Dead Sea.

For the past few months, SPSC Aberdeen has been campaigning against the stalls by leafleting Saturday shoppers and  urging them to boycott Jericho cosmetics.

Campaigns in Glasgow, Dundee and Edinburgh have resulted in the closure of Dead Sea cosmetics stalls in shopping centres across Scotland. Let's make sure Aberdeen follows!

Please sign and share widely: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/say-no-to-jericho-s-stolen-resources-1

PETITION AGAINST THE THREAT OF COMPULSORY REDUNDANCIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN

Aberdeen Trades Union Council is encouraging all our members and affiliates to back the University and Colleges Union (UCU) and to sign the petition to urge Aberdeen University to rule out the use of compulsory redundancies and to seek alternative, more progressive methods for placing itself on a sustainable financial footing.

Click here to sign the petition.

The campaign is supported by Aberdeen Defend Education Cuts (ADEC); Aberdeen Students Against Cuts (ASAC) and Aberdeen University Students Association (AUSA).

The union is saying NO to compulsory redundancies because:

·         Through the Voluntary Severance Scheme, the University has already saved the £5.4 million they lost from funding cuts

·         The University has also generated an extra £3.2 million in additional surplus

·         It wishes to make a further £1.9 million - not due to funding cuts but for additional surplus

·         The University has refused to rule out compulsory redundancies in pursuit of their goal

·         It is highly likely that staff will be placed "at risk of redundancy" from January 2016

Sign up to fight the Tory Govenment's attack on unions

On 17th July the government unveiled the Trade Union Bill and ATUC members will have seen and heard Tories taking to the airwaves to denounce trade unionists.

The bill is the biggest attack on trade unions in decades. The ATUC is calling on all our delegates, associates and affiliates to sign-up to Unions Together's 'Fight the Bill'  at  www.unionstogether.org.uk/anti_tu_bill

 

Melanie Bartlett, Campaigns Co-ordinator at Unions Together warned, "The text of the bill is a carefully crafted and chilling attempt to undermine the basis of trade unionism.  

 

"We need to stand together to stop this bill which represents an attack on both our human and democratic right to organise collectively.

 

"The Tories want to restrict our ability to protect our member’s terms and conditions at work, limit our ability to strike and restrict our ability to campaign on the political issues which matter.
 

"The right to strike is made significantly harder, other agency workers drafted in to make legitimate strike action redundant, attempts to criminalise pickets and reduce our political campaigning funds.

 

"Trade union laws in Britain are already outside international convention standards and this bill will take Britain far away from the democratic tradition."

 

Sign up today to join the campaign to fightback against this unfair, unnecessary and undemocratic law www.unionstogether.org.uk/anti_tu_bill.

Sign up to fight the Tory Govenment's attack on unions

On 17th July the government unveiled the Trade Union Bill and ATUC members will have seen and heard Tories taking to the airwaves to denounce trade unionists.

The bill is the biggest attack on trade unions in decades. Sign-up to Unions Together's 'Fight the Bill'  at  www.unionstogether.org.uk/anti_tu_bill

Melanie Bartlett, Campaigns Co-ordinator at Unions Together warned, "The text of the bill is a carefully crafted and chilling attempt to undermine the basis of trade unionism.  

 

"We need to stand together to stop this bill which represents an attack on both our human and democratic right to organise collectively.

 

"The Tories want to restrict our ability to protect our member’s terms and conditions at work, limit our ability to strike and restrict our ability to campaign on the political issues which matter.
 

"The right to strike is made significantly harder, other agency workers drafted in to make legitimate strike action redundant, attempts to criminalise pickets and reduce our political campaigning funds.

"Trade union laws in Britain are already outside international convention standards and this bill will take Britain far away from the democratic tradition."

Sign up today to join the campaign to fightback against this unfair, unnecessary and undemocratic law www.unionstogether.org.uk/anti_tu_bill.

Say no to compulsory redundancies at University Aberdeen - sign the petition

Aberdeen Trades Union Council, at its meeting on 13th May, pledged support to Aberdeen University and College Union to fight Aberdeen University's refusal to rule out compulsory redundancies as part of its plan to axe 150 jobs.

UCU members at Aberdeen University are currently being balloted for industrial action to stop planned job cuts including compulsory redundancies and you can sign the petition calling on the university to find more progressive ways to save money here.

ATUC is urging members of all our affiliate unions and associate groups to sign this petition in support of our UCU colleagues.