THERE are mummies outside Glasgow City Chambers. Also, IT staff.
There are furious students outside the Glasgow School of Art.
There are protesters outside City of Glasgow College.
There are 69 catering staff at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) waiting to see if they will still have jobs at Christmas or if they, too, will be outside.
Every day this week and last I have spoken to an employee who is unhappy at their work. Miserable, tired, stressed, overburdened, uncertain.
The mummies are janitors working for Glasgow City Council’s arm’s-length company Cordia. In dispute over pay, they have wrapped themselves in bandages and are picketing the city’s civic centre to, they say, guise the council into listening.
The IT staff are out there too. Their service is to be privatised and outsourced to Canada.
Support staff from the college also want more pay and, on Thursday evening, sought to catch the attention of Depute First Minister John Swinney, as he attended the launch of City of Glasgow College’s new £162 million campus.
Cordia - again - held the catering contract for GCU but this will be awarded to another supplier. Cordia believes the staff at GCU should TUPE to the university. The university believes the staff should be redeployed within Cordia. The staff just want to know if they’ll be unemployed come December or not.
Art School Students feel the GSoA is prioritising its brand over quality of teaching with an increase in tuition fees but no increase in services for students.
Placards range from the blunt (“What Am I Paying £50 a Day For?”) to the delightful (“Francis Bacon, This Desk’s Taken”, “Monet, Not Money”).
I spoke to a college lecturer impacted by the support staff strikes. She can’t fulfill her role and leave on time without them. I spoke to a catering employee of Cordia’s who was in tears at the thought of being forced out of his job of 19 years by bureaucratic wrangling.
I spoke to a janitor of 30-odd years service who was inflamed that his skills and his dedication to his school are being undermined, undervalued. His head teacher was expected to assume many of his responsibilities, he said, while private contractors take on some of the others.
You can’t make your way from one end of Glasgow’s city centre without ricocheting against someone outside, on the street, brandishing a placard. The city centre is a pinball machine of disgruntled workers or students.
The women of Iceland again, 40 years after the first time, have walked out. They were also outside, protesting against earning less than men.
It is the country hailed as being best in the world for gender equality and yet its women walked out of workplaces at 2.38pm on Monday, the time they start working for free.
On the same date in 1975, some 90 per cent of the female population took a day off in protest of their lack of political power and equal pay.
In 2005, women left work at 2.08pm. In 2008, it was 2.25pm. Progress, but slow.
In Austurvöllur Square, in Reykjavik, thousands gathered after leaving the offices, shops, factories, and schools where they were working.
Apparently, one third of Scottish parents worry about their work-life balance - too much work, not enough time with their children - but are too afraid to ask for flexible hours.
I wonder what would happen if we followed the example of the women of Iceland and walked out.
Everyone who is overworked, understaffed and underpaid. Gathered in the street with the mummies and the students. Forgot about working through lunch breaks and never leaving on time. Shrugged off the societal pressure to see overwork as a virtue.
Maybe used their placards to write ideas about how we fix the disempowerment of the work force and take some life back.
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