Employees of a women’s charity in Scotland have voted to strike after raising bullying concerns and being asked to stay at home while the charity investigates their allegations.
Workers’ union Unite announced this week that 13 members of staff working at Glasgow East Women’s Aid (GEWA) had voted to take part in industrial action.
The union also said five of these employees had been dismissed during the ballot period and that it was taking legal action on their behalf.
It claimed that the dismissals were unfair and linked to the workers’ trade union activities.
GEWA would not confirm whether employees had been dismissed and said that strike action was not justified.
A spokesperson for Scottish charity regulator OSCR said that it was in contact with the charity and “understand[s] the current situation”.
Charity: ‘Strike action is not justified’
A spokesperson from GEWA said: “The board instructed an external HR investigation in September that is still ongoing.
“The employees are now expressing that the investigation is not moving as fast as they would like despite it only having been around two months.
“This may seem like a while; however, it needs to be understood that it will take time to complete a comprehensive independent HR investigation into over 15 individuals, over a course of complaints that they have brought to the forefront, referring to alleged behaviour that is many years old.
“Strike action is not justified and ironically could delay the investigation.
“The board has made every possible effort to resolve issues and continue to support employees through external counselling, but employees are ignoring our attempts at resolution.
“We are now at a highly regrettable stage where we are trying to resolve matters with our employees, but they refuse to communicate with us directly. Therefore, we are at a loss as to how else we can resolve matters with these valuable workers.”
Union considering next steps
Sharon Graham Unite general secretary, said: “Unite will not tolerate any of our members at Glasgow East Women’s Aid being targeted and dismissed due to raising legitimate concerns about their workplace.
“These dismissals shockingly took place during an industrial action ballot, and there is no doubt this move was designed to undermine the ballot process.”
“Unite has launched unfair dismissal claims on behalf of our five members. Be in no doubt we will be holding the organisation’s management to account for its disgraceful behaviour and potentially illegal attitude to its staff.”
Unite industrial officer Linda Wilson, said: “We believe our members have been targeted for attempting to raise legitimate concerns about the service, and for exercising their rights by involving their union in this dispute.
“We will now consider our next steps following our members’ emphatic support for strike action.”
Unite would not confirm when the strike action would take place.
