On Reporting Scotland tonight, we hear a rant from Gary Smith of the GMB:
‘It’s an absolute outrage that it has taken so long for us to get our act together and to start getting the PPE that we need arriving in the quantities that we require as well. And I would also say that were aren’t out the woods here either because if the demands for PPE increase and that is likely particularly in terms of mask and gowns em there is a question mark about how resilient that supply actually is.’
It’s just a rant. No figures, no evidence and language borrowed from Boris Johnson. Smith even seems unaware that numbers of cases have been plateauing for several days and those requiring treatment in intensive care are fewer each day.
Smith is just a rent-a-gob that BBC Scotland know they get at the drop of the hat to say something negative about the Scottish Government or the SNP.
Readers may recognise the great irony in Smith and the GMB accusing others of taking too long. The GMB was accused of delays in submitting claims for equal pay on behalf of hundreds of women workers and of failing to inform them that they would have legal fees deducted from the settlement, in 2019.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-49985113
Readers may also remember Smith’s attention-seeking rant about Glasgow last July:
‘GLASGOW is a “filthy” and “unkempt” city that is in economic and political decline, according to one of the country’s top trade unionists. n a blistering attack on the state of Scotland’s largest city, GMB Scotland boss Gary Smith also derided the quality of the local airport and said Glasgow is suffering from an “epidemic” of rats.’
You name it, he’ll shout about it for the cameras.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Gary Smith , GMB , BBC Scotland’s go to guy when they need to stir up an imagined grievance in the ranks , he spouts as much drivel as they do
. !
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Simple case of
It Takes one to KEN one
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More like rent a shite to order
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Does he live and work in Scotland ?
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What this crisis has shown is who the real essential workers are and how poor are their pay and conditions. So trade unions are right to use the situation to make the case to the public. They SHOULD politicise it. The financial class and the unionists have never stopped doing it.
Mr Smith was on Good Morning Scotland and made the same argument – largely, but not wholly, unchallenged. He was asked for figures to support his argument, but provided none. He had one anecdote. The interview was framed as a crisis for the Care sector in Scotland, with the imminent shortfall in England brought in to bolster his case, but made to sound as if it was UK and, hence Scottish. He several times made specific references to the Scottish Government, saying he had written to them before the crisis. He said this twice during the interview, This was clearly the line that BBC Scotland want with regard to care in Scotland.
He brought in the fact that some people who are being discharged from hospital are being placed in care homes and implied they were being put into danger. To be fair to Laura Maxwell she did raise the point about the developing (pre-Covid19) policy of providing care in the community to deal with the issue of ‘bed-blocking’. However, Mr Smith restated his ‘ warning’ about putting them in danger.
As I said, I think that Care workers and others must use the crisis to emphasise their case for better pay and conditions and they have my support in that.
However, as you point out, the GMB was complicit in the denial of proper wages for female employees in Glasgow over more than a decade. The ruling Labour Group in GCC was complicit and since many TU officials are also in the Labour clique there was shocking collusion to the detriment of many of their members and voters. And, once the current GCC administrtion had settled with the women, with breathtaking hypocritical brass neck, the GMB and the Scottish Labour Party held a march to berate the administration for not paying the women immediately and, with the connivance of the unions, ignored both GMB and Labour responsibility.
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