International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOBIT) is an important day to recognise, as sadly not every country around the world has the same rights. Equally, there are individuals that seek to undermine these progressive rights in Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. We cannot let this happen!
Author: Stirling Websites
LG Pay Update – Revised Offer
You will see that the only change is to add £50 to the flat rate proposed for those earning below £25k per annum. The rest of the offer remains unchanged.
COSLA tabled a revised offer at last week’s meeting of the SJC Steering Group – this is at the bottom of the page for your information. You will see that the only change is to add £50 to the flat rate proposed for those earning below £25k per annum. The rest of the offer remains unchanged.
Local Government Committee decision
Your Local Government Committee met last Thursday to consider the revised offer and considered that this was not a significant improvement to the offer that would necessitate a further member consultation. On this basis the Committee took the unanimous decision to proceed with industrial action plans.
Letter to COSLA
UNISON have written to COSLA outlining the LG Committee’s decision.
Wildfires are burning on the island of Evia – BBC
Hundreds of firefighters have been battling huge blazes that have forced thousands of people to flee their homes and destroyed dozens of properties.
Fuelled by strong winds and Greece’s worst heatwave in decades, over 580 fires have broken out across the country since late July.
The biggest is on Evia, where 650 firefighters are still struggling to control the blaze.
“The fire was our destiny, no one could have put it out,” Vangelis Katsaros, who lost his entire farm to the blaze, told the BBC. Read more at the BBC
Climate change: IPCC report is ‘code red for humanity – BBC
Human activity is changing the climate in unprecedented and sometimes irreversible ways, a major UN scientific report has said.
The landmark study warns of increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts and flooding, and a key temperature limit being broken in just over a decade.
The report “is a code red for humanity”, says the UN chief.
But scientists say a catastrophe can be avoided if the world acts fast. Read more…
Courses for 2021
See our calendar for details of all our courses for the remainder of the year (August and September Organising Stewards courses are full).
All courses will be tutored by UNISON Scotland Tutors and will be
hosted on the Zoom platform
How do I apply for a course?
You can get a form from your Branch Secretary, Education Officer or from the UNISON Scotland website www.unison-scotland.org/learning/.
Complete the form and get it signed by an appropriate Branch Officer and return without delay, but at least 14 days before the course begins.
If you do not have access to the Internet please leave a message for the Activist Education team on 01463 715891 or email activisteducationscotland@unison.co.uk.
Online Application form
LG Update 04 August 2021
Further guidance will be provided to businesses to help them adopt measures to mitigate risks, including ensuring good ventilation; maintaining good hand hygiene; practising respiratory hygiene; getting vaccinated; and continuing to engage with Test and Protect.
Beyond Level 0
Further detail about measures announced .
Further guidance will be provided to businesses to help them adopt measures to mitigate risks, including ensuring good ventilation; maintaining good hand hygiene; practising respiratory hygiene; getting vaccinated; and continuing to engage with Test and Protect.
Some baseline measures will remain in place:
- it will continue to be the law, subject to exceptions, that face coverings must be worn in indoor public places and on public transport
- Test & Protect will continue to contact-trace positive cases. To assist with this there will be a continued requirement for indoor hospitality and similar venues to collect the contact details of customers. Anyone who is required to self-isolate will, if eligible, continue to have access to support
- we will work closely with local incident management teams on appropriate outbreak control measures
- we will continue to use travel restrictions, as and when necessary, to restrict the spread of outbreaks and protect against the risk of importation of new variants
- for now, we will continue to advise home working where possible, recognising that some staff will start to return to offices in line with staff wellbeing discussions and business need. we will encourage employers to consider for the longer term, as the Scottish Government is doing, a hybrid model of home and office working – which may, of course, have benefits beyond the need to control a virus
- we will, for a limited period, keep in place a gateway process through which organisers of outdoors events of more than 5000 and indoor events of more than 2000 will have to apply for permission. This will allow us and local authorities to be assured of the arrangements in place to reduce risk
- we will continue to issue appropriate guidance to assist individuals and businesses to reduce the risk of transmission as much as possible, such as rigorous hygiene, including regular hand washing.
More information can be found here https://www.gov.scot/news/scotland-to-move-beyond-level-0 and here https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-update-first-ministers-statement-3-august-2021-1
Asymptomatic Testing Programme Update
Please view a letter that has been sent to local authorities asking that they include communications around on-return asymptomatic at-home testing in their plans for return to schools in the coming weeks.
An update on the asymptomatic testing programme is also included.
Revised Schools Guidance
Following the First Minister’s statement today the revised schools guidance can be found here: Coronavirus: reducing risks in schools guidance
To allow time to monitor the impact of a new policy on self-isolation for U18s, and to take account of the unique features of the school environment at the time of return, the guidance advises the continued application of most of the existing mitigations for a period of up to 6 weeks; for example, the position on physical distancing in schools should effectively remain the same, despite the wider changes to these requirements.
As with previous versions, the guidance will be kept under constant review, and if data and evidence suggest that any specific mitigations can be removed at an earlier stage advice will be provided to that effect.
Stirling UNISON 