By Richie Venton, SSP National Workplace Organiser.
City of Glasgow College strikers have the axe-wielding Principal, ‘Little Paul’ and his merry band of Senior Management lickspittles on the run.
These overpaid bosses are hell-bent on 100 compulsory redundancies. They were desperate to ram through their butchery by the end of June, treating the dedicated human beings affected as mere numbers on their balance sheet.
When the EIS-FELA union reps asked – for the past two months – for the redundancy consultation period to be extended to the next academic term in August, Captain Doctor Little, CBE, insisted such an extension of the process would cost additional job losses. He never quite got round to explaining how or why!
Now, as a result of the impact of the 5-week all-out strike, he has conceded that the redundancy process will indeed be extended into August, after the summer shut-down. Challenged by EIS-FELA branch convener, Charlie Montgomery, on whether the extended process INTRODUCED BY MANAGEMENT would lead to additional job losses, Little and his compliant cohort said ‘No!’.
So apparently senior management enjoy a different form of accountancy than the workforce and their union reps – what might be called double book-keeping!
And in an astonishing new revelation, the bosses explained they would delay the process “because we are dealing with people”! Without being uncharitable, would they have stumbled on the startling discovery that staff facing the chop are actually ‘people’ if those same people had not risen up to resist, through strike action?
@EISFela
However, this concession should not be misinterpreted as an act of generosity from the ‘esteemed’, self-entitled Principal and CEO. Hot on the heels of agreeing to allow consultations after the summer break, Little’s regime tried to ram through rushed ‘consultation’ meetings with the individual staff hit by these compulsory redundancies, at a rate of knots which the self-proclaimed sea captain would no doubt deem downright dangerous in naval circles!
They tried to bamboozle impossible numbers of staff to hold their meetings each day this week, right up until 5pm on Friday, when the college shuts; numbers that senior management knew full well made it literally impossible for union reps to attend in support of members.
Alongside these underhand methods, the same cavalier crew refused to let the union put their alternatives to compulsory redundancies directly to a meeting of the college Board – and even rejected offers by staff members to cut their own hours to save their own and other lecturers’ jobs.
As Charlie rightly concluded, addressing another packed meeting of picketing strikers, “Paul Little and company don’t want solutions, they want redundancies.”
All this signifies a bunch of bosses on the run, desperate to wriggle out of their legal duties, lashing out with attempts to rush through bogus consultations without proper union representation. They won’t succeed! The determination of the strikers has only been hardened by these sharp practices from £215,000-a-year Little.
It’s way beyond time for the First Minister, Humza Yousaf, to end his Trappist silence, step in and instruct Little & Co to stop compulsory redundancies – which flies in the face of the declared ‘Fair Work’ policy of the Scottish government… not to mention their public claims of wanting to be judged on their record as a government on education provision.
This is an assault on workers, jobs, and the education of wall-to-wall working-class students. They must be stopped!
And the Scottish government needs to feel the hot breath of opposition from other workers, students and parents whose futures are being jeopardised without a whimper of clear-cut opposition from the Holyrood government.
Furthermore, this whole battle highlights the case for democratically elected College Boards, including elected reps from staff trade unions and student unions, as well as elected councillors and the government – to bring some accountability and realism to the running of what is, after all, a vitally important public service.
“Education is a right! Stop the redundancies!
Solidarity with the EIS-FELA strikers! Solidarity with UNISON members now balloting for strike action!
Sack the Principal and the Board – for an elected Board to enhance Further Education!