| UNISON City of Edinburgh Branch |
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9 February 2004 Nursery Nurses rally to both of 'Edinburgh's Disgraces'Edinburgh's nurses, members of UNISON, will lobby the Council Executive on Tuesday 9 March at 10.00am to expose the local offer as a 'disgrace'. They will then march to 'Edinburgh's Disgrace' monument on Calton Hill to release hundreds of balloons to promote their case for fair wages. In a submission to the Council Executive, UNISON Branch Secretary John Stevenson will release the result of a consultative ballot which asked whether nursery nurses wanted to consider Edinburgh's local offer or continue fighting for a national deal. John Stevenson said, "The result of an almost 9-1 rejection of local talks gives the lie to councillors' arguments that nursery nurses are being led by the nose by trade union leaders. We have already balloted, even though we didn't need to, and won an overwhelming 81% vote to take indefinite strike. When will the employers realise that nursery nurses are angry, are fully in charge of their dispute and will fight on for a fair national deal?" "We will call on Edinburgh Council to use its key role in CoSLA to get talks going again at national level. Even the First Minister has said there should be national talks if that would solve the dispute. Let's have them now and put an end to this obstruction from the employers". "The Council has used taxpayers money to promote this misleading offer to nursery nurses and parents. We can't write to everyone to give them the real story but we hope releasing the balloons will get the message to 'support the nursery nurses' across Edinburgh", added Mr Stevenson. Agnes Petkevicius, UNISON Branch Officer and herself a nursery nurse, said "The offer is insulting to nursery nurses' intelligence. The figures have been fiddled to look like a rise when it is in fact a cut. Of course if you work more hours you will get more money but this offer means we will lose 19p an hour. Nursery nurses are furious that councillors think they are stupid enough to swallow this". "In any case, a nursery nurse is a nursery nurse wherever they work in Scotland. It would be stupid to have one being paid hugely different rates just because one nursery is across a council border from the other. Try telling that to teachers", she added. ENDS Note for Editors: 'Edinburgh's Disgrace' is the unfinished 12 column monument on Calton Hill. In 1826 it was started to commemorate the Scottish soldiers who died in the Napoleonic Wars. However, three years later the funds ran out. It was never finished and was nicknamed 'Edinburgh's Disgrace'. The design was a replica of the Parthenon in Greece. For Further Information Please Contact: John Stevenson 07876 795 018 (m) Agnes Petkevicius 0131 220 5655 (o) |
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