WE, the undersigned, oppose recent proposals to staff our NHS and other public services during crises through a youth-focused National Service to create an unpaid reserve workforce. As young people and citizens, we demand investment in the skilled workforces of our NHS, equal employment rights for young workers, and opportunities for young people in line with our values.
Our NHS and its workers would be undermined by the creation of an unpaid reserve workforce. Our NHS is not a charity operated by volunteers. Our NHS workers are experienced professionals who have undergone years of education and training to provide top quality health care from the cradle to the grave.
The solution to this current crisis is not to undermine the fundamental tenets of our NHS. The solution is to continue to defend it by relentlessly opposing austerity, cuts to public services, and privatisation.
Like all citizens in Scotland, young workers need incomes to support ourselves and workplace rights. The creation of a new unpaid reserve workforce undermines the progress made so far on employment rights and the protection of young workers.
We fully support the SNP’s commitment to ban unpaid trial shifts, and therefore oppose outlined proposals to compensate young workers with tax rebates and UCAS points instead of fair wages. Like all workers, young people deserve meaningful jobs, dignity in work, and to be properly remunerated for our labour with at least a Real Living Wage.
The proposal of National Service is one derived from the thinktank the Royal United Services Institute, which is funded by the global defence industry, including Lockheed Martin, and the tobacco and oil industry, including Imperial Tobacco and Statoil.
The intentions and interests of these corporations are not in line with the values that we as young Scots wish to see embodied in our society or in our own futures. We oppose any slide towards the militarisation of our public services, particularly our NHS, and the encroachment by corporate and security interests on the values-based operation of the NHS. Instead, we believe that any proposal involving young people, our NHS and its workforce must be led by young people, NHS bodies and trade unions.
The Covid-19 pandemic has rightly created discussion on how we transform society. We as young people will inherit it. We firmly reject any form of National Service which undermines our public services and their workers and damages our rights. We demand well funded public services, fairly-paid jobs and the opportunity to independently decide our own futures.
Signed,
1. Rory Steel - Glasgow
2. Catriona MacDonald - Lothian
3. Jim Wyke - Lothian
4. Beth Chalmers - Lothian
5. Tejas Murkeji - North East
6. Theo Forbes - North East
7. Dominique Ucbas - Glasgow
8. Jeanette Miller - Lothian
10. Andrew MacDonald - Lothian
11 Heather Stewart - Lothian
12. Craig Berry - Glasgow
13. Sarah Quinn - Central
14. Alexander Bradley - Lothian
15. Emma Leigh - Lothian
16. Euan Matthews - Lothian
17. Wictoria Orlicka - Central
18. Cal Dempsey - Central
19. Gabriel Hanlon - Mid-Scotland & Fife
20. Usman Akhtar - Central
21. Erin Campbell - Lothian
22. Euan Stewart - North East
23. Kelly Given - Lothian
24. Josh Mennie - North East
25. Erin Jarvis - West
26. Steven Campbell - Lothian
27. Ruby Zajac - Glasgow
28. Christopher Winters - Central
29. Priya Shah - Lothian
30. James Anderson - Central
31. Orla Burrows - Mid-Scotland & Fife
32. Rieve Wishart - Central
33. Charlotte Armitage - Glasgow
34. Calum Cook - West
35.Valentina Servera Clavell - Glasgow
36. Andrew Walker - Glasgow
37. Rhona Ley - North East
38. Robbie McIntosh - Mid-Scotland & Fife
39. Morgan Ritchie - North East
40. Cameron Webster - Lothian
41. Stuart Smith - North East
42. Jerry Moriarty - Mid-Scotl. & Fife
43. Keir Low - Highlands & Islands
44. Ethan van Woerkom - Lothian
45. Jack Boag - North East
46. Ryan Kelly - Central
47. David Morgan - Glasgow
48. Cllr Cameron McManus - Central
49. Bruce Morrison - Lothians
50. Ross Grahame - Glasgow
51. Ben Grahame
52. Oriol Roig Vilaseca
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