GMB jobs call backed by Labour leader at STUC

Anas Sarwar today backed GMB calls to reform procurement rules to let Scotland make again.

On the first day of STUC Congress in Dundee, the Scottish Labour leader promised that, if elected, he will guarantee the social value to Scotland will be properly weighed before UK manufacturing and engineering contracts are sent around the world.

After a speech detailing his priorities if elected first minister, GMB Scotland delegate Mary Mulligan had asked how a Scottish Labour government at Holyrood would stop contracts being off-shored.

She said: “Scotland has heard years of promises about industrial strategy while public contracts, skilled jobs and apprenticeships continue to be sent elsewhere.

“GMB Scotland has been clear that procurement must stop being decided on cost alone and must deliver jobs, skills and social value here in Scotland. 

“As First Minister, what specific changes would you make to procurement policy to ensure Scottish public money supports Scottish manufacturing and strengthens Scottish supply chains instead of allowing publicly funded work and the jobs that go with it to be sent abroad?”

In reply, Sarwar said that, if elected in the Scottish Parliament elections next month, his government would ensure the social value of public contracts – how they would support Scottish workers, businesses, supply chains, families and communities – is properly weighted in the tendering process.

“We will add a social value clause to drive up the benefit to individual Scottish communities and individual businesses. That is absolutely what we will do,” he said.

He also promised his government would close the manufacturing skills gap, delivering new training centres to create a new generation of skilled apprenticeships.

The issue was raised in an earlier debate in Caird Hall when GMB delegate Linda Carr-Pollock said it was “a national disgrace that Scotland’s skills gaps is already wide and getting wider, that our young people are not being given the skills they need and our country needs.”

Speaking in a debate highlighting the impact of cuts to further education, she called on ministers, schools and colleges to work with unions to build new apprenticeship programmes and clear pathways into good, secure jobs.

She said: “Our country’s greatest priority is tapping the potential of every young Scot and offer them the training to secure skilled, well-paid unionised jobs.

“Those skills and those jobs will secure their working lives, and allow them to build a future for their families and their communities.”

Later, in one of the final debates on the first day of Congress, Annette Drylie, leader of the GMB Scotland delegation in Dundee, highlighted the ongoing impact of years of austerity on Scotland’s public services.

She said workers were too often made scapegoats for failing services undermined by financial cuts and under-resourcing.

She said: “When the crisis becomes impossible to hide, public sector workers, our members, are treated as a cost to be contained rather than the people going above and beyond to deliver these crucial services.

“This motion should be supported. It backs insourcing. It backs fair funding. It backs workforce planning. And it backs sectoral bargaining in social care.

“Congress, the answer to failing public services is not more of the same. It is investment. It is proper staffing. It is democratic control. It is respect for the workforce.

“Services can only be as strong as the workers delivering them.”