SCHOOLS, payrolls and social work operations are facing widespread disruption as hundreds of workers are balloted for strike action over plans to privatise IT at Scotland's largest council.
Unions claim plans to hand over the running of all Glasgow City Council IT work to the Canadian multi-national implicated in the Obamacare crisis and the Scottish farmers' subsidies fiasco would damage the service and lead to job losses.
The ballot will take place next week and would have major implications on everything from school lessons to monitor information on children in care and the sex offenders' register.
But the council's Labour leadership has accused Unison of "misleading scaremongering", adding the union's case was "riddled with inaccuracies and mistakes".
The move comes as the city council announce a deal with Montreal-based CGI would be £100million cheaper than an in-house model, with the seven-year deal worth around £400m.
In a briefing to all staff, the authority's chief executive Annmarie O'Donnell has claimed that as well as being cheaper the CHI deal would "improve the ability of our vulnerable citizens to live independently (and) provides greater support for raising (schools) attainment and achievement".
Claiming a quarter of the contract's value would be spent on local local businesses, Mrs O'Donnell added there would be no compulsory redundancies as part of the deal.
But following meetings with the council's Labour leadership and senior officers on Wednesday, Unison has dismissed the pledges and claimed the authority''s claims about the proposed contract lacked credibility.
Glasgow branch secretary Brian Smith said: “The council appears to be moving down the road of privatisation. The council leadership say they will consider the views of the workforce and Unison will continue put the case for an in-house model which we believe is best for Glasgow’s citizens who rely on council services, council taxpayers and the workforce.
"Unison will also begin a ballot for strike action next week as we believe that this proposal represents a clear threat to jobs, employment conditions, pensions and services.”
The Herald revealed in August how, amid an unprecedented squeeze on council finances, Glasgow planned to join Edinburgh and Scottish Borders in handing over all its IT services to the GI Group, with other councils and public sector bodies expected to follow suit.
Edinburgh's contract is structured to allow 50 organisations to join without the need for procurement and with CGI also operating a number of Scottish Government contracts Glasgow's move has triggered claims that council IT could be on course to become the first public service in Scotland to be wholly privatised.
It also emerged how Labour councillors in the city were deeply apprehensive about the move, its capacity for industrial disputes and ideological ramifications, with concerns also raised over CGI's role in several high-profile cases, including the EU subsidies issue and Obamacare, which saw the outgoing President's pioneering health insurance policy plagued by an embarrassing series of delays and errors.
Promoting the plan to staff, Mrs O'Donnell also said the CGI deal would give 100 long-term unemployed people training every year, help secure the future of the libraries' estate, and provide digital devices to deprived communities and charities.
Council leader Frank McAveety said: “We have made it clear to staff that there is no threat to them.
“Officers know that I am not prepared to consider any option for an external contract which does not have protection of jobs, terms and conditions, and pensions, at its very core.
“The union leaders are scaremongering and misleading their members. They have produced their own version of a business case which is riddled with inaccuracies and mistakes.”
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