Congress noted that many places on Scotland’s Public Boards are held by a “wealthy class of executives” including ‘influential’ bankers, retired civil servants, well-connected industry insiders, powerful chief executives and ex-politicians.
It backed a call from Glasgow Trades Union Council for an investigation into the make up of Boards to determine and promote how they can be effectively lobbied to further industrial disputes and campaigns.
Supporting the, UNISON’s Stuart Graham pointed out that all IJBs and Health boards are public boards.
“Their decisions affect tens of thousands of UNISON members in local government social care and health services nationally, with control and direction of public funds as well as how those may be used for commissioned services,” said Stuart.
“If those who are making decisions on public boards are not democratically accountable, then we need to figure out how to apply leverage to place them under public scrutiny to make them accountable for any decisions which are counter to trade union and civic interests.
“This motion calls for analysis to be applied which would complement the current STUC political education courses and strategy and provide disputes and campaigns with information that would give those workers the confidence to publicly apply that leverage in their collective interests.”