Historic mass strike could bring nation to a standstill
This week, severe concerns were expressed over the possibility of a countrywide strike over pay bringing Scotland’s public services to their knees ... as the ferry fiasco saga also rumbled on
Monday, May 16 Minister blames trains chaos on drivers in pay row
NEWLY-NATIONALISED ScotRail has been branded a “complete shambles” as more than 400 services were cancelled in the last three days.
ScotRail blamed a “significant number of drivers” for the crisis, saying they had declined to make themselves available for overtime or rest-day working due to a pay dispute.
Transport Minister Jenny Gilruth has said the Scottish Government is looking to phase out the practice of rest-day working, describing it as “outdated”.
However, one distraught passenger tweeted: “Really not good enough! As a family we’ve had 3 disrupted journeys this weekend and only 1 offered a replacement bus!! What a disgraceful service and a complete shambles you are when you can’t sort this!!!!”
Before yesterday’s spike in cancellations escalation, there were a further estimated 160 services cancelled over the course of Friday and Saturday.
A further 135 other services have been curtailed since Friday.
Yesterday, ScotRail was unable to provide rail replacement transport at all to cover cancellations on at least two routes.
Tuesday, May 17 Tycoon was told pledge not essential for ferries contract
TYCOON Jim McColl only bid for a crisis-hit ferry contract after written guidance was received from the then-transport minister Derek Mackay that a builder’s refund guarantee was not mandatory to win the work.
The Herald can reveal that Mr Mackay told a local MSP in a letter six months before Mr McColl’s Ferguson Marine yard became preferred bidder that transport bosses saw refund guarantees as only “a preference”. He added that state-owned ferry procurement firm Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL) had “on occasion taken alternative approaches” to the bonds while explaining how a “different approach may be required for shipbuilding contracts”.
Mr Mackay’s stance came four months after CMAL told bidders a different story in a pre-qualification contract questionnaire for the £97 million contract for two ferries that are still languishing in the Port Glasgow yard.
According to CMAL’s contract rules, seen by The Herald, any would-be preferred bidder would be disqualified without the mandatory guarantees, meaning they would not be scored and therefore fail at the first of the three-step procurement hurdle.
The development has now raised fresh questions about the legality of the process.
It comes after public finance watchdogs first raised the guarantee when they revealed that ministers sanctioned giving the contract to Ferguson Marine (FMEL) in 2015, despite the yard being unable to protect CMAL and potentially the taxpayer from financial risk.
Wednesday, May 18 Summer of rail strikes loom as 800 services cancelled
SCOTS rail passengers face a summer of severe disruption as rail workers moved closer to a national strike that will target the busiest time of year for tourists and disrupt the Edinburgh festivals.
Passengers have already been severely hit as up to 800 ScotRail services were cancelled in just over a week in the wake of a drivers’ pay dispute which has seen workers unofficially work to rule.
Now the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers union will ballot its members on strike action over pay and conditions following a meeting yesterday.
Nationalised ScotRail had already offered workers a 2.2 per cent pay increase and no compulsory redundancies for two years.
But the RMT wants a higher wage rise, no compulsory redundancies for five years, no booking office or station closures for two year, and hundreds of new apprentices.
Meanwhile, the transport staff union Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) has now called for action to avoid a “far-reaching” industrial dispute across the network this summer as it considers a potential national strike ballot with its staff.
Thursday, May 19 Vaccination after infection may reduce the risk of long Covid
COVID vaccines could be used as a potential treatment to relieve long Covid symptoms, a new study suggests. Research by the Office for National Statistics compared the
incidence of long Covid symptoms before and after vaccination in people who had previously tested positive for the infection.
The study, the largest of its kind to date, tracked more than 28,000 people in the UK over a seven-month period from February to September 2021, of whom around 6,700 experienced long Covid symptoms.
Researchers found that the odds of participants experiencing long Covid symptoms decreased by 13 per cent immediately following a first dose vaccination, with a further reduction of 9% following a second dose.
Friday, May 20
Mass strikes threaten to grind Scotland to a halt for months
TENS of thousands of Scots workers including rail staff, cleaners, refuse collectors and teachers are set to go on strike in pay disputes that could bring the nation to a standstill for months.
A series of disputes threaten a summer of major disruption with the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), the country’s largest teaching union, the latest to threaten industrial action if improvements are not made to a rejected pay offer of 2 per cent for teachers.
It comes as it emerged cuts to nationalised ScotRail services, exacerbated by a pay dispute, could last into 2024. Just 55 out of 130 new train drivers aimed at settling a staff shortage are expected to be trained up by the end of this year.
School staff, home care workers and refuse collectors are among those expected to be involved in a targeted ballot for industrial action in a dispute over local authority pay in the next few weeks.
One source from the public services union Unison said: “I suspect there is going to be a long period of industrial disputes.”
Saturday, May 21 Squeeze on families as shop prices soar by over 20%
CONSUMERS have been hit with “shocking” price rises of more than 20 per cent on hundreds of popular items over the past two years that are putting increasing pressure on household budgets. New research has found a drop in the availability of supermarket discounts and budget ranges compared with two years ago as the cost-of-living crisis continues to bite.
It found the price of 265 groceries shot up by more than a fifth over the last two years.
The investigation by the consumer organisation Which? said the list of items included Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes Cereal 500g, which increased by 21.4% in price at Tesco; Asda’s Own Label Closed Cup Mushrooms 250g, which rose 21.4%; and Cathedral City Extra Mature Cheddar 350g, which increased by 21.1% at Ocado.
Which? analysed the price of more than 21,000 groceries over two years, comparing their average prices at eight major supermarkets between the start of December 2021 and the end of February 2022 with the same period two years previously. Across 20 categories of groceries, fizzy drinks saw the biggest average price rise at 5.9%, followed by butters and spreads (4.9%), energy drinks (4.8%), and milk (4.6%). Groceries with the lowest inflation included chocolate (1.4%) and fresh fruit (1.6%).