You will be aware of he TU Bill and it’s attempt to restrict trade unions from representing member interest by making it more difficult for members to strike.  Add to this the cut back on facility time you as a rep needs to deal with the collective issues in the workplace and to represent individual members at disciplines and grievances.

GMB are campaigning hard to get this Bill thrown out and at best to get it diluted to such an extent we can stop Government interference in collective bargaining matters.

The most vindictive part of this Bill is the government’s decision to end paying TU contributions through their wages. This is a deliberate act to hit the funds of the union and break our workplace organisation and we cannot allow the government to get away with this as well as fighting back against the bill’s restriction on strike action and facility time, GMB are fighting back against attempts to break our organisation in the workplace by getting members to switch to direct debit.

The link below takes you to a leaflet GMB Scotland has produced to give more information on the Bill and it’s consequences could I ask you to forward this onto any email lists you have for members as it is important they know what this fight is about.  You will also be receiving hard copies of this leaflet next week.

                                                                                                      http://tinyurl.com/zldf36y

There is some talk about certain parts of the bill not applying in Scotland such as the facility time and the removal of TU contributions through wages and Cosla have said they will not implement these parts of the Bill and we applaud them for that and will support their position however GMB cannot leave it’s future to this alone so we have decided to plan for the worst and hope that this part of the bill will not apply in Scotland.

That means we have to encourage our members top switch to direct debit, if we do that we will beat the governments attempts to weaken workplace organisation.  GMB Scotland are monitoring the Bill as it makes it way through parliament and it is currently at the committee stage of the House of Lords and critically at this stage there is no exemption for Scotland so we have to keep the campaign to switch over to direct debit going and you folks as our representative will be critical to the success of this so please help in anyway you can to make this work.

GMB Scotland are also looking at the Scottish Government’s stand on this, they are against the Bill which again is good news but they are not taking any practicable steps to stop the Bill being enacted in Scotland.  GMB are looking at this as well and if we can put pressure on the Scottish Government we will take all steps open to us to stop the Bill coming to Scotland.

So the fight goes on in the UK and Scotland to stop this Bill and with your support in making the direct debit campaign a success we will win!!

Alex   

Alex McLuckie
Senior Organiser
GMB Scotland
d: 0141 352 8141

Posted: 3^rd March 2016

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