Prospect members gather in Stirling to promote World Class Heritage campaign

Heritage sector reps from across Scotland gathered at Heritage Environment Scotland’s building conservation hub in Stirling this week to launch the World Class Heritage campaign in Scotland.

This was the first in a series of events to mark 100 meetings of Prospect’s heritage group and launch the Prospect report, ‘World Class Heritage: Second Class Pay‘.

Reps from every Scottish Heritage branch attended the event, which heard from a range of speakers about Prospect’s work in the sector in the past, and its campaign plans for the future.

As former Prospect official Alan Leighton told the event: “The heritage group started back in 1989 in the IPCS trade union.”

Alan explained that when the group started one of the first campaigns was to bring different professional groups together to campaign on under funding and poor pay across the whole sector, a theme which still resonates nearly 35 years on.

The meeting was addressed by Angela Gannon, Prospect NEC member, chair of the Prospect Heritage Group and Convener of the Scotland Heritage Group: “I wanted to take on this role to make a difference, and in essence this is what all Prospect members aspire to do when they step forward to become reps. In many ways we are really just ordinary people but by working together collaboratively and effectively we can together achieve extraordinary things.”

Dan Watson, a Prospect rep and ecologist from National Trust for Scotland (NTS), talked about the importance of Scotland’s natural heritage and explained the work that Prospect members do to conserve and protect the environment.

Dan also talked about Prospect’s work in NTS, and some of the challenges that the branch had had to overcome because of the funding challenges being faced by the organisation.

Dan said: “Things have changed, and Prospect have been instrumental in fighting the corner of the rangers, making sure that some jobs were saved.”

The branch was now pushing to make sure that staff received decent pay commensurate with both the qualifications and skills that they bring to the sector.

Lindsey Ross and David Mitchell, senior leaders from Historic Environment Scotland, gave the employers’ perspective. They both emphasised the role of unions like Prospect in providing honest feedback to employers and recognised that while unions and organisational leadership would not agree on everything, the relationship was critical to shared success.

Lindsay Ross told the meeting: “I really value the relationship both formally and informally, and it’s important to move things forward in a way that is quicker and gets the right outcome.”

David Avery, Prospect negotiations officer and lead for heritage in Scotland set out his plans to push the heritage sector in Scotland, to more effectively boost its profile with the public and the government. This would be vital alongside organising in workplaces to tackle many of the problems of funding and low pay often faced in the sector.

Closing the meeting, Prospect national secretary Richard Hardy, thanked the reps, members and employers’ representatives for coming along to the event. He thanked the reps for their work building the union and told them “without you we wouldn’t have a union”.

Prospect’s next event highlighting the World Class Heritage campaign will be held in the House of Lords in November.