290 jobs: Fife yard deal is vote of confidence in new owners and skilled workforce scotsman.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from scotsman.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Strike movement in Scotland sparked by end of lockdown measures
The relaxation of coronavirus lockdown restrictions in Scotland, as part of a UK wide reopening of the economy, has sparked a multi-sector wave of strike action, ballots and protests.
Workers are engaged in struggles at universities and colleges, the railways, the National Health Service, the energy and water utilities, together with air traffic controllers, packaging workers and defence industry workers.
All these workers have been designated as essential to the basic functioning of society during the pandemic, consistently risking their lives in unsafe workplaces. Having been cynically lauded as heroes by the UK Conservative and devolved Scottish National Party (SNP) governments, they now face swinging cuts to jobs, pay and conditions. This is part of global assault by capitalist governments and big business to impose the full cost of the pandemic onto the backs of the working class through fire and rehire schemes a
Reopen grant scheme to support taxi drivers, union demands
The Unite Scotland trade union has called for a grant scheme to be reopened (Jane Barlow/PA)
A taxi driver grant scheme should be reopened because a third of cabbies have missed out, Unite Scotland has demanded.
The trade union has accused the Scottish Government of “withholding” £19 million in unawarded grants from the £57 million Taxi and Private Hire Driver Support Fund that has now closed.
But Finance Secretary Kate Forbes has instead pledged to give a second grant worth £1,500 to taxi drivers who received the first one – if the SNP government is re-elected.
Reopen grant scheme to support taxi drivers, demands Unite Scotland scotsman.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from scotsman.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
A disgrace : Ministers under fire for withholding £19m of Covid support for Scots taxi drivers MINISTERS are under fire for withholding taxi support cash as drivers face a postcode lottery of support during the pandemic. Unite Scotland is furious after it was told that the an underspend of £19m on the vital fund has been reallocated - despite an original mix up over who is eligible. It is estimated around 25,333 eligible drivers out of an estimated 38,000 drivers across Scotland applied for the £1,500 grant. It comes after the launch of the fund at the start of the year was branded farcical because it emerged that drivers on universal credit would not be able to apply.