Public Transport Campaigner
£23,460 pro rata (£18,768 for 4 days a week)
Working from shared premises in Glasgow
12 month contract
Commencing summer 2019
- Are you passionate about improving public transport for everyone?
- Do you see better public transport a key way to deliver social and environmental justice for our city’s region?
- Do you want to support our voluntary committee and help take our successful grassroots campaign to the next level?
- We want to hear from you!
Get Glasgow Moving
We are seeking an experienced and highly self-motivated campaigner based in/near Glasgow to help scale-up grassroots support for our campaign across the region, and to secure the long-term stability and sustainability necessary to deliver our ambitious vision.
Get Glasgow Moving was founded by local people in 2016 to campaign for a world-class, fully integrated & accessible, publicly-owned & accountable, public transport network for everyone in our city’s region. We have been awarded funding from the Foundation for Integrated Transport to recruit a full-time campaigner to take our campaign to the next level.
History
In the late 19th Century, when Glasgow’s Subway and Tram were first opened, our city’s public transport network was seen by many as the best in the world. The post war period then saw a series of disastrous car-centric decisions, such as: a huge motorway building programme, deliberate urban sprawl, the Beeching cuts of the 1960s, and the deregulation of the buses in 1985. Coupled with government failure to deliver on any ambitious plans for expansion, such as: Glasgow’s Crossrail, Subway extensions and the Strathclyde Tram, we are now left with a shambles of a network, which is the laughing stock of Europe. In a city with some of the worst poverty and lowest levels of car-ownership in Scotland, whole communities have been left stranded. People are left at the mercy of private bus companies who choose only to run profitable routes and continue to hike up fares so that they are now some of the most expensive in the UK. A single on Glasgow’s privatised First buses is now £2.40, compared to £1.70 on Edinburgh’s publicly-owned Lothian buses and just £1.50 on London’s buses, which are properly regulated by Transport for London.
Our Principles
Get Glasgow Moving was founded in 2016 by a group of local people with the aim of reinstating vision and ambition for Strathclyde’s public transport network; rebuilding what has been taken from us. The Strathclyde region (currently overseen by the disempowered and underfunded ‘regional transport partnership’, SPT), is the most populous part of Scotland with the highest number of bus users. 388 million journeys are made by bus in Scotland every year.
We are demanding a world-class, fully integrated & accessible, publicly-owned & accountable, public transport network for everyone in our city’s region. We believe this is the only way to deliver social and environmental justice – expand our city’s economy, address inequality and social isolation, reduce toxic levels of air pollution and tackle climate change. If we are successful in delivering our vision for Glasgow, we aim to once again become a leading light for the UK and the rest of the world, showing how high-quality, comprehensive and affordable public transport truly can improve quality of life.
Your Role
The Scottish Government’s new Transport Bill is making its way through the Scottish Parliament in 2019. Since late 2017, Get Glasgow Moving has been lobbying to give local/regional transport authorities the powers to run their own bus services and to properly regulate existing private bus operators in their region (powers known as ‘franchising’). You will follow this legislation closely and seek opportunities to influence decisions in order to help deliver our vision and ensure our public transport network is run for our region’s people and not for private profit.
You will work closely with Get Glasgow Moving’s voluntary Management Committee (3-10 people) to help scale-up grassroots support for our campaign across the region, and to secure its long-term stability and sustainability.
1) Building Support
Other than our first public meeting in September 2016, our Crossrail discussion and hustings in 2017, and demonstrations at Glasgow City Chambers and The Scottish Parliament in 2018, most of our action has been online. This is not ideal, as online campaigning can exclude people most affected by bus route cuts. Therefore, your first key objectives will be to:
- Mobilise grassroots support for the campaign. This will involve organising events and rallies in the places most adversely affected by private bus companies’ fares and cuts – Glasgow’s peripheral housing estates, and other places on the outskirts of the city. You will also ensure that marginalised groups, such as disabled people, young people, refugees and asylum seekers, who are most disempowered and disrupted by bus route cuts and fare hikes, are central in shaping the campaign.
- Expand the organisational network. This will include outreach to the charities and groups that backed our 2016 manifesto, partnering with organisations campaigning on sustainable transport-related issues in Strathclyde, and engaging our city’s Community Councils.
- Use every opportunity to get the word out, including:
- Reactive media engagement
- Broadcast opportunities
- Designing and circulating campaign materials and resources – we want a campaign sticker at every bus stop in the city, so that it’s impossible not to know that Get Glasgow Moving is out there, fighting for all public transport users’ rights.
2) Long-term Sustainability
We have a long fight ahead and we need a sustainable campaign structure. In January 2019 we formally constituted the campaign as an ‘unincorporated voluntary group’ and now have a bank account and experienced elected Office Bearers:
- Chair: Ellie Harrison (Glasgow resident, one of Get Glasgow Moving’s founders and the founder and coordinator of the national Bring Back British Rail campaign)
- Secretary: Gavin Thomson (Glasgow resident and air pollution campaigner with Friends of the Earth Scotland)
- Treasurer: Aswad Choudhry (Glasgow resident, initiator of the Extend Glasgow Subway Timetable on Sundays petition and experienced accountant)
Your second objective will be developing a sustainable structure for the campaign: recruiting more of our grassroots supporters to get actively involved. If we decide to continue with paid staff after the first year, then your task will be finding the most appropriate revenue stream; for example crowdfunding, a membership / supporters’ scheme, or longer-term grant funding, which does not compromise our core demands for the public ownership and control of our public transport network. Once we are able to mobilise both our online and offline supporters, we hope that we’ll become an unstoppable force for positive change. We take inspiration from:
- GoBike: Strathclyde Cycling Campaign – who have built and sustained an active membership of several hundred people since they re-launched in 2010.
- Bring Back British Rail – who successfully crowdfunded £20,000 for a legal action to bring the East Coast mainline back into public ownership.
- We Own It – who raised enough from £5 per month donations for a full-time press officer, and who after receiving a similar grant from the Foundation for Integrated Transport, recruited the campaigner Pascale Robinson and have built the brilliant Better Buses for Greater Manchester campaign.
Person Specification
Essential
- Highly self-motivated to campaign for improved public transport for the Greater Glasgow region
- Passionate about public transport and the people who use it
- A strategic self-starter with initiative, ready to hit the ground running with support and guidance from our voluntary Management Committee
- Knowledge of the public transport policy landscape or an ability to quickly learn
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, responding to all emails in timely fashion
- Excellent organisational skills, a systematic person who sets and meets deadlines
- Emotional intelligence, great at working in a team
- Creativity (especially on a tight budget)
- High attention to detail
- Confidence with IT systems and Office software, social media and basic design software
- Committed to our aims for public ownership
Desirable
It would be really useful if you have experience – paid or voluntary – of any of the following:
- Track record in campaigning and/or thinking strategically about how to make change happen, ideally in/near Glasgow
- Knowledge of the Greater Glasgow region and local/national politics
- Experience of working or campaigning for better public transport
- Experience of working in a small/campaigning/third sector organisation with a Board or voluntary Management Committee
- Experience of project management under pressure
- Experience of social media/press work/fundraising/organising and chairing events
- Skills in photo editing/design/video making
- Formal education or qualification in one of these areas of work
How to Apply
We are committed to equality of opportunity and encourage applications from women; black, Asian and minority ethnic people; people who identify as having a disability; people from the LGBT+ community; and people from working-class backgrounds.
To apply, please email Ellie Harrison at info@getglasgowmoving.org, marking the subject ‘Public Transport Campaigner’.
Your application should include:
- A Covering Letter explaining why you’re interested in the role and how you meet the Person Specification, giving examples of your previous experience and skills which will help you in the role
- Your CV
- The names and contact details of two referees
Applications can be made by email only
Closing date: Friday 26 April 2019, 5pm
Interviews will be held in Glasgow on Tuesday 14 May 2019
For an informal chat about the role, please contact Ellie Harrison