Greenkeepers: Sign Up To Privatisation Or Face The Sack

Dundee Leisure Bosses Tell Greenkeepers: ‘Sign Up To Privatisation Or Face The Sack’

Seven local greenkeepers have been told by Leisure & Culture Dundee (LACD) bosses to sign-up to an uncertain future or face the sack, ahead of the privatisation of the city’s Camperdown and Caird Park golf courses.

Worried workers have now submitted a collective grievance to the Dundee City Council arm’s length company after incoming owners, French landscaping giant ID Verde, gave no commitment to the full transfer of existing terms and conditions, including the continuity of their Tayside Pension Fund status.

However, LACD have said that if the basis of the grievance is a failure to agree TUPE terms, then the seven workers will be dismissed, leading GMB Scotland to accuse LACD and Dundee City Council officials of ‘washing their hands’ of any responsibility for the greenkeepers’ livelihoods.

The transfer of the courses is scheduled for 1 May.

GMB Scotland Organiser Helen Meldrum said: “It is a disgrace that LACD management and council officials have completely washed their hands of our members who have over one hundred years of public service between them.  It’s one more example of Scotland’s austerity shame.

The hypocrisy of leisure management and council officials, who themselves enjoy publicly funded terms and conditions and pensions, telling colleagues to sign-up to a privatised future or face the sack is there for all to see.

GMB will keep defending our members’ interests, resisting any attempt to impose a detriment on their livelihoods, but I would warn workers across the council that if privatisation can be imposed on these seven workers then it can be imposed on you too.

Against the backdrop of a decade of austerity on local government finances, and almost certainly with further cuts to the city budget to come in the next few years, I’ve no doubt that we’ll see creeping privatisation across our local service.”

Ends

Contact: GMB Scotland Organisers Drew Duffy on 07912 560806 & Helen Meldrum 07958 156838