Scottish Labour Party

Last October, the lack of progress in settling a long-running dispute at Glasgow City Council led to the biggest equal-pay strike in British history. On Monday 21 January, over 250 women members of the GMB employed by Glasgow City Council attended a meeting to hear an update on the campaign. The previous week the media had reported that agreement had been reached with the now SNP-­run Council in a dispute stretching back to 2006, when the then Labour­controlled council introduced a new pay scheme to address gender-­based pay inequalities. Refusing to adopt the pay scheme used by all other...

The Crisis of Scottish Labour A Survation opinion poll carried out in mid-November found that Labour had a 1% lead over the Tories in England and a 17% lead over the Tories in Wales. But in Scotland Labour was on just 23%, a poor third behind the SNP (40%) and the Tories (27%). As with any opinion poll, the precise figures are open to challenge. But as far as Scotland is concerned, the figures reflect the experiences of many Labour canvassers on the doorstep. Two overlapping factors explain the polling figures for Scotland. Firstly, the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence resulted in a...

Up to 8,000 Glasgow City Council workers, members of the GMB and Unison, took part in last week’s two-day equal pay strike. For 48 hours only emergency cover was available in home care services. Primary schools and nursery schools were closed. Secondary schools were open, but without a school-meals service. Workers in Glasgow’s four refuse and recycling centres refused to cross picket lines, bringing refuse collection to a halt for the duration of the strike. Some parking attendants and museum and libraries staff also refused to cross picket lines. The strike – the largest equal pay strike in...

“Glasgow Labour has much work to do to regain the trust of our communities, and to be given the chance to form an administration again… Over the coming years, Glasgow will face enormous challenges.” That’s what the publicity said for an all-members conference organised last weekend by Glasgow City Council Labour Group. After 40 years in control of the City Chambers, Labour had gone into opposition after losing last year’s local authority elections. But there was no sign at the conference that the Labour Group understood why it had lost office. In fact this was the after-effect of the suicidal...

Over 50 Labour Party politicians and office-bearers in and around Glasgow have put their names to a statement backing “direct action” to prevent Serco implementing its policy of changing the locks on asylum-seeker accommodation. The statement was initiated by Labour Party members active in the campaigning triggered by Serco’s announcement in late July that it would be evicting asylum-seekers deemed no longer eligible for support by changing the locks on their accommodation. Around 5,000 asylum-seekers are accommodated in Glasgow, the only local authority in Scotland to accept asylum-seekers...

Anas Sarwar spent more than twice as much as Richard Leonard in the Scottish Labour Party (SLP) leadership contest held late last year. A large proportion of the donations came from businesses linked to his family. Sarwar spent over £150,000 during the ten-week election campaign. The largest campaign donation (£41,000) came from United Brands Ltd., part of United Wholesale (Scotland) Ltd. (UWS), which was founded by Sarwar’s father and uncle and is now run by his brother Asim. Nearly £3,000 was donated by United Tradeston Ltd., another spin-off from UWS, to help fund Sarwar’s campaign-office...

On Saturday 18 November, Richard Leonard was announced as the new Scottish Labour leader. In the election contest triggered by the sudden resignation of Kezia Dugdale, he defeated Anas Sarwar by 57% to 43%. Among individual members Leonard had a narrow majority (52% to 48%). Among affiliated trade union supporters he had an overwhelming majority (77% to 23%). Among registered supporters Anas Sarwar secured a narrow majority (52% to 48%). A sizeable chunk of Sarwar’s votes from individual members would have come from new members who signed up under a special “join for £1 a month” scheme. It...

The result of the contest for leadership of the Scottish Labour Party will be announced on Saturday, 18th November. At the core of that contest has been a struggle by the rank-and-file of the Scottish Labour Party and affiliated trade unions in Scotland to liberate the Scottish labour movement from the grip of a right-wing old-guard establishment. Richard Leonard secured 42 nominations from Constituency Labour Parties (compared with 16 for Anas Sarwar), ten nominations from trade unions (compared with one for Sarwar), and the backing of all affiliated socialist societies which made nominations...

Supporting nominations from Constituency Labour Parties in the Scottish Labour Party leadership contest closed on 13 October. Richard Leonard had 42, compared with 16 for Anas Sarwar. The right-wing Community trade union backed Sarwar. All other unions which submitted a supporting nomination backed Leonard. Leonard also has a narrow majority of nominations from the seven Scottish Labour MPs, while Sarwar enjoys a majority of nominations from MSPs and councillors. Leonard is the left-wing candidate in the contest. Although not a member of the Campaign for Socialism (which doubles up as the...

Anas Sarwar, candidate of the right wing in the Scottish Labour Party leadership contest, has been getting a bad press. And deservedly so. The focus of the bad news was United Wholesale (Scotland) Ltd., the Sarwar ″family firm″ (in the sense that the only shareholders in it are the Sarwar family). The lowest paid employees in the company are paid the legal minimum: the National Living Wage of £7.50 a week. This is well short of the Scottish Living Wage of £8.45 an hour, and even further away from Labour Party policy of a minimum wage of £10 an hour. The family firm could easily afford to pay...