Peter Smyth “People are being vilified for something as simple as having a roof over their head, and that is just wrong,”

Inez Teece

Mark Ferguson

Following a robust and inspiring introduction by UNISON member and Liverpool Mayor, Joe Anderson, when he slammed welfare reforms and their impact on the most vulnerable, delegates overwhelmingly supported a range of measures to fight the Westminster government’s attacks on the Welfare State.

Joe said, “It is at times like these that trade unions show their worth, where they come into their own.”

Conference didn’t disappoint.

Led by Inez Teece, Scotland Regional Delegate, speaker after speaker got up to condemn welfare reforms with personal testimony of their devastating impact on the poorest and most vulnerable.
Inez told delegates that there is already a housing crisis with 180,000 on housing waiting lists in Scotland alone, and house building levels at their lowest since the war.

This government’s “bedroom tax”, which is condemning people to poverty, with no opportunity to move to a smaller house, won’t even save money, warned Inez, as it will force more people into the costlier private and rented sector, and at worst, into homelessness.

“What we need is more construction and more social housing,” she added.

It is our members in Local Authorities who are at the sharp end on these policies – “implementing them on the one side, and picking up the pieces on the other,” as more and more people face hardship through these policies, all adding to the workload of staff.”

Scotland’s Mark Ferguson, speaking for the Service Group Executive reminded delegates that the majority of benefits claimants are working people, many of them women in part-time and low paid work.

Condemning the widespread hardship that the bedroom tax has caused, Mark said that we should applaud the local authorities doing their best to avoid evicting people, “Whether it’s reclassifying the number of bedrooms as they are in Leeds, Nottingham and Knowsley, or adopting a non-eviction policy like my own authority in Renfrewshire.”

But the quickest way to stop evictions is to get the bedroom tax abolished and Mark called on Labour to commit to the eradication of the Welfare Reform Act in its entirety and to “join the fight against social division.”

In his first speech to Conference, Aberdeen City’s Peter Smyth, spoke of his city, “the oil capital of Europe and, oh yes, the busiest foodbanks in Scotland.”

“A city where a man can offer £40 million to concrete over a garden, while thousands are being penalised for their children moving out, relationships ending, or, as I saw recently, a partner dying.”

“People are being vilified for something as simple as having a roof over their head, and that is just wrong,” he said.

Describing himself as a “proud Labour Party member,” he also condemned Labour’s failure to commit to repeal the Act, adding that six simple words would remove fear from hundreds of thousands. “Labour will remove the bedroom tax.”

Until that happened he called on conference to send a clear message to those people, “UNISON is with you.”

16 June 2013