Glasgow council staff in demo over ICT privatisation proposal
Union members will meet with the Council's ruling Labour group on Monday.
Council workers in Glasgow are to protest against a proposal to privatise the city's information and communication technology provision.
The workers who are members of the Unison union will gather outside the City Chambers on Monday ahead of a meeting of the ruling Labour Group.
More than 350 workers are affected by the proposal to privatise the council's ICT provision to the Canada-based company CGI.
Brian Smith, Unison's Glasgow branch secretary, said: Unison believes that this proposal is wrong for a number of reasons, including higher long-term costs, loss of control of a key council function, the future impact for social care, schools, home care, financial payments, council tax collection/benefits and other vital council services, and the threat to hundreds of workers' jobs, wages and conditions.
The best way to ensure quality council services is to have them run in-house under democratic control.
Public money should not be used to increase the profits of global private companies.''
The workers affected have more than 5,000 years' combined council service, and Unison say that many intend to hand back their council long-service awards on Monday.
A Glasgow City Council spokeswoman said: We are in the early stages of the council's ICT procurement process and no final decision has been made.
However, it is not true to say there is a threat to jobs, wages or conditions.
Both the leader of the council and the chief executive have made it very clear that the interests of staff will be placed firmly at the centre of any plans and fundamental to this is job security and preservation of terms and conditions for the workforce.''