Campaigning by Contract Research Staff and the AUT in Scotland has brought
CRS employment issues into the political arena and offers us an excellent
opportunity to to put forward our case to the wider public and put real
political pressure on the Universities. 

Alex Neil (Member of the Scottish Parliament) has had a motion
accepted for debate next Thursday 22nd November at 12.30pm (see below)
I would ask that all Glasgow CRS (and other GAUT members) e-mail their MSPs
and request they support the motion. This can be done easily at the Scottish
Parliamentary website (http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/msps/msps.html.)

For those of you who do not know who your MSPs are, there is a post-code
input box that will tell you who your constituency and list MSPs are and
take you to their e-mail addresses.

Contact details and a draft letter is available at the AUT Scotland
website, (http://www.aut.org.uk/scotland/index.html), which you can cut and
paste into your e-mails. It would be good if you could add information about
your own circumstances so that MSPs get a clearer picture of the problems we
face and secondly so that the letters are individual and look less like a
mass-circulation mailshot.

It would be very helpful if you could pass on this e-mail to other CRS who
may not be GAUT members.

Please support this motion and show there is a real groundswell of opinion
backing this campaign.

John Flint ( Glasgow University AUT/CRS)

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S1M-2184# Alex Neil: Contract Research Staff-
That the Parliament recognises that contract research staff in Scotland's
universities and research institutes are one of the most significant assets
in Scotland's knowledge economy; notes that more
than 90% of such staff are employed on insecure fixed term contracts,
resulting in a systematic failure to properly exploit our
science and social science base to the benefit of the Scottish economy
and society; further notes that this highly educated
human resource, comprising graduate, postgraduate and postdoctoral level
workers, is subject to constant wastage, to the
detriment of Scotland's universities and economic potential, and
believes that the Scottish Executive should act with clarity,
urgency and determination to secure a complete overhaul of the
management of the contract research workforce with a view to
eliminating the current insecurity and wastage and establishing a
radical new approach in partnership with higher education
employers and representatives of the research staff.

Supported by: Tommy Sheridan, Donald Gorrie, Mr Adam Ingram, Mr Lloyd
Quinan, Mr Gil Paterson, Mr Kenneth Gibson,
Christine Grahame, Shona Robison, Michael Matheson, John Farquhar Munro,
Robert Brown, Robin Harper, Ms Sandra White,
Dr Winnie Ewing, Brian Adam, Michael Russell, Nora Radcliffe, Dennis
Canavan, Dorothy-Grace Elder, Fiona McLeod, Richard
Lochhead, Roseanna Cunningham, Mr Andrew Welsh, Fiona Hyslop, Irene
McGugan

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