Joe McGurk – Unite the Union: Youth Activist – (pictured), who is part of Unite’s youth committee and works for Dumfries and Galloway council, has been involved with the union for four years.
“I decided to get my employer to sign up to the #fightfor5 pledge as it just seemed like the right thing to do,” he said.
“We work to live not live to work so its important people are secure in their work and paid a wage they can realistically live on.”
Dumfries and Galloway council employs 3,600 people.
“Dumfries is a relatively small town and quite often gets forgotten,” added Joe.
Unite’s #fightfor5 campaign is for decent work for all. It is a member led campaign and allows people to organise in their workplace to win better pay and conditions.
The #fightfor5 promotes hope and opportunity for workers instead of fear and insecurity that goes hand in hand with low paid, insecure work.
Advocating these 5 workers welfare rights is a humane thing to do, we work to live, not live to work. Dumfries and Galloway Council employs 7234 staff and with such a big organization you can at times have complete disengagement between management and staff alike, so to have one of our local MSP’s and both the Local Labour Party and SNP party back this campaign is a massive achievement! Dumfries and Galloway Council is an accredited Living Wage employer and therefore in my opinion are in prime position to enforce and ensure companies within our region pay the living wage. Dumfries and Galloway is the 2nd lowest paid region in Scotland and if you combine that with exploitive employers like Sports Direct, who employ 75% of staff on Zero-Hour Contracts, is just absolutely diabolical. With that being said I urge the people of Dumfries and Galloway to get involved as this campaign encapsulates everything we should be doing in Dumfries and Galloway to ensure that workers welfare are one of our highest priorities
Unite is calling for:
1 A wage we can live on
2 Safe, secure work
3 Guaranteed hours each week
4 Training, development and career opportunities
5 A collective voice and union representation
Support the campaign
Twitter @decentworkforall
Jody Whitehill, , 2015
