TRADE unions face a looming dilemma over whether to support workers who refuse Covid jags and so clash with their employers and colleagues, a leading public health expert has warned. Andrew Watterson, professor of occupational and environmental health at Stirling University, said unions had so far been urging vaccination take-up, and for making key workers a priority. But as lockdown restrictions ease and working from home ceases to be the norm, the same unions now have to consider how to handle members who refuse vaccine. In a paper published in today’s Scottish Left Review, Prof Watterson was also critical of how the vaccination programme had been rolled out in Scotland and the rest of the UK to key workers.
This may be the result of the Scottish Parliament elections on May 6.
The outcome of the 2019 general election, Brexit and the economic and social impact of the coronavirus crisis have added to this movement.
A majority Conservative government in Westminster, in the age of fixed-term parliaments, has seemingly closed off the option of a Britain-wide advance through a radical Labour Party and the smouldering ashes from the defeated independence referendum of 2014 have been reignited into red hot coals by the differing ways in which Holyrood and Westminster governments have responded to the pandemic.
Though politics is about much more than just constitutional options, it is becoming increasingly clear that the advancement of progressive politics in Scotland can only happen under a different constitutional settlement.