North Lanarkshire Update



A fog of mystery surrounds the chain of events which led to the GMB union leaving the settlement negotiations with North Lanarkshire Council in the latter part of 2014.

As regular readers know the GMB's involvement in these discussions became untenable because unlike all the other equal pay claimants (represented by Action 4 Equality Scotland, Fox and Partners Solicitors, Unison and Unite), the GMB decided to restrict its members claims to only three years.

In effect this mean that at the GMB was paddling a completely different canoe and now which was not challenging the discriminatory basis of NLC's pay arrangements or the implementation of the Council's job evaluation scheme.

Despite the fact that the GMB was given an opportunity to change its position and follow the lead of Action 4 Equality Scotland and the other participants.  

Now my understanding is that the GMB left the settlement discussions when they resumed at the third meeting, having been asked to clarify whether the union wished to fall into line with everyone else at the second meeting - to which the answer was 'No'.

But who actually attended the three separate settlement discussion meetings on behalf of the GMB and who sought guidance (and from whom) on whether the union ought to reverse its dumb decision to restrict GMB members' claims to only 3 years.

And what was the 'reason' for the union deciding foolishly to stick to its guns when all the other parties involved (including two other unions) were going down a very different path?

I know that some GMB members have already asked these question of the union's leaders in Scotland yet, so far at least, no answers have been forthcoming.

The good news is that there were a variety of people (including lawyers) present at  the NLC settlement discussions and so it should not be too hard to hard to get to the truth.   

So watch this space.    

Popular posts from this blog

SNP - Conspiracy of Silence

LGB Rights - Hijacked By Intolerant Zealots!