Joanne Krus
Deputy News Editor
Trade unions accuse Glasgow Life of not treating their employees the same way as other Glasgow City Council workers.
Trade unions in Scotland have come together to launch a campaign against Glasgow Life.
Unison, GMB and Unite announced on Unison Glasgow City Branch’s Facebook page that their new campaign is on behalf of Glasgow Life employees.
Glasgow Life is the cultural branch of Glasgow City Council. The branch runs museums, libraries, communities, sports centres and cultural services in the city. The trade unions argue that though Glasgow Life employees work for the council, they are not treated the same as other council employees.
Unison wrote in their post that the 2,500 people employed by Glasgow Life felt like the “odd ones out” and that the unions were calling for workers employed by Glasgow Life to be treated the same as council workers in terms of public holiday payments, overtime rates, grievances and disciplinary procedures.
The unions also claim that Glasgow Life has purposefully hired less people than they need in order to force employees to do more flexible hours.
Other parts of their campaign include wanting the council to stop the privatisation of catering service in the Burrell Museum. Unison wrote that it breaches a 2017 manifesto commitment not to privatise services made by the current council administration.
The trade unions encourage the Glasgow public to contact their councillors and MSPs and have launched their petition on Change.org, which had over 460 signatures at the time of writing.
