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Star Comment: SNP's shame on blacklists

SNP’s shame on blacklists

Tomorrow’s protest in Glasgow by GMB, Ucatt and the Blacklist Support Group should warn the Scottish government that it’s not off the hook over blacklisting.

Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s responsibility for construction procurement in Scotland means she has the power to reverse the decision her fellow SNP members on Dundee council took to recommend handing a huge new contract to BAM Construction.

The firm’s claim never to have blacklisted anyone in the country is contradicted by GMB’s findings — and the council has rushed the timetable for allocating a £45 million museum contract to prevent proper scrutiny of its record.

Scottish government guidelines state that companies which have blacklisted workers should not be given public-sector contracts “unless they can demonstrate appropriate remedial action” — but as is so often the case, the SNP may talk the talk but fails to walk the walk.

 

Its record on public procurement was marred earlier this year when it chose to hand the Caledonian Sleeper service over to dodgy privateer Serco, which is still being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office for charging the taxpayer to tag dead offenders.

Despite posing as the defender of the National Health Service, which is being wrecked south of the border by the coalition’s Health and Social Care Act, public spending on private health in Scotland is up 37 per cent on the SNP’s watch.

It is evident that the SNP cannot be trusted to deliver on its often progressive rhetoric, making it all the more important that campaigners hold its feet to the fire on blacklisting.

Blacklisting ruins lives. It is utterly unacceptable and firms such as BAM which have not compensated blacklisted workers should be pariahs until they do.

With three days to go before Scotland votes on separating from the rest of Britain, Ms Sturgeon has an opportunity to demonstrate whether she takes working people’s concerns seriously or if she is just as beholden to corporate clout as the Westminster elite she reviles.

 

Another dodgy deal

Time is running out for us to stop the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (Ceta) with Canada from being implemented.

Talks on the EU-Canada pact have already concluded, yet the fine print of the agreement has yet to be revealed to the public.

Ceta, like the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) being thrashed out equally secretly with the United States, is not about trade but about deregulation — weakening standards on environmental protection and labour rights and opening up public services to exploitation by private capital.

Allowing corporations to sue governments which take decisions which might affect their profits is a negation of democracy itself — the subordination of elected administrations to big business.

This is no problem for the EU, which since its inception has been a mechanism to enforce a corporate agenda which would never make it at the ballot box.

Regulations promoting “competition” have been used to promote the privatisation of the railways and Royal Mail, and will certainly be dragged out in opposition to the reversal of the Health and Social Care Act promised by Labour.

The eurocrats can, however, be stopped — if a sufficiently broad campaign against Ceta and TTIP is mounted without delay. 

Our public services depend on it.

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