Scotland’s most senior trade unionist has urged the Government in Edinburgh to protect workers in the public sector as thousands face redundancy in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.
General Secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress, Rozanne Foyer (pictured) said many Councils and public services were “addicted” to outsourcing work to recruitment agencies “whose only concern is squeezing some profit from supplying workers on demand”.
There are up to 120,000 agency workers in Scotland and Ms Foyer said many of them were contracted by the public sector, including the National Health Service (NHS).
Ms Foyer said she wanted to see the Scottish Government face up to the scale of the problem.
“Any publicly funded job in Scotland must have conditionality attached to the contract so that workers have a decent contract, access to trade unions and an effective worker voice,” Ms Foyer said.
First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon has warned that the end of the United Kingdom Government’s furlough scheme next month would cause a “tsunami of redundancies”.
She called for the job retention scheme to be extended for 12 months, “especially for the sectors hardest hit by COVID-19 and with the longest road to recovery”.
A report by academics at Edinburgh University’s Business School warned that more than a quarter of hospitality and tourism businesses in Scotland could collapse, costing up to 60,000 jobs.
Meanwhile, the Night-Time Industries Association Scotland has warned music venues and nightclubs were facing “financial Armageddon”, with more than half fearing they would have to shut within two months.
Edinburgh, 8 September 2020
