Glasgow - Court of Session
The A4ES legal team is meeting this week to finalise its response to Glasgow City Council's application seeking leave to appeal the Court of Session decision which judged the council's WPBR pay scheme to be 'unfit for purpose'.
I will share the A4ES 'answers' once they have been lodged and come to think of it I will also publish Glasgow's application so that readers can see for themselves what the City Council is saying in support of a further appeal to the UK Supreme Court.
Now I am optimistic about seeing off GCC's application for leave to appeal because in my view the Council's case is very weak - in fact it's just a rehash of the unsuccessful arguments Glasgow made at the original Court of Session hearing.
For example, the City Council raises the cost implications of the judgment, but I fail to see how that can have any bearing on the outcome since the cost represents 'loss of income' to thousands of low paid women claimants who have been paid so much less than their male comparators for the past 10 years.
So setting aside the enormous political problems an appeal to the UK Supreme Court would present to an SNP led Glasgow, I expect the City Council to lose its application although, frustratingly, that is not necessarily the end of the matter.
Because the City Council could then make a further application direct to the UK Supreme Court, despite having repeatedly pledged to end the litigation and resolve all the outstanding equal pay cases by negotiation.
We shall see what happens and I understand that we can expect to hear the outcome of GCC's application next month, i.e. sometime in November.
A4ES and Unison are working together on this issue, by the way, which is good news for all the claimants, but the ridiculous GMB is not involved because the union was not part of the original appeal to the Court of Session.
Glasgow - Court of Session (08/10/17)
"How come an SNP council is trying to raise the case in the UK supreme court, is a Scottish judicial decision not good enough?"
Now that's a very good point, I have to admit.
Especially when you consider that the Court of Session is Scotland's highest civil court and that the CoS delivered a cogent, powerful and unanimous judgment .
So if GCC were to be granted leave to appeal, the SNP will look pretty ridiculous if it sets off to the UK Supreme Court in London to overturn the considered views of three senior Scottish judges.
But I don't think that is going to happen for reasons I will explain on the blog site later today.
But I don't think that is going to happen for reasons I will explain on the blog site later today.
First Minister and Equal Pay (07/10/17)
"Tweet sent"
"I sent Nicola Sturgeon an email and a group of us are going to ask her for a meeting"
"I’ve already sent one to her last month and the reply I got was basically it’s up to individual councils how they deal with it!"
"I got one saying that too ... disgrace"
Now the point of the exercise is not to make impossible or unreasonable demands of the City Council or Nicola Sturgeon, either as a Glasgow MSP or as First Minister.
Now the point of the exercise is not to make impossible or unreasonable demands of the City Council or Nicola Sturgeon, either as a Glasgow MSP or as First Minister.
But the fact of the matter is that the City Council is still refusing to come clean and explain how the interests of the bonus earning male groups were 'looked after' under the WPBR pay scheme.
And if you ask me, that's a national disgrace especially as we're talking about Scotland's largest and best resourced council which has cheated and robbed low paid women workers of their rights to equal pay for years.
No one is asking the First Minister, the Scottish Government or Glasgow MSPs to take control of the City Council - all that's being asked is that local politicians raise their voices and speak out about this terrible secrecy and refusal to shine a light on Glasgow's furtive pay arrangements.
I am absolutely prepared to accept that the new SNP led City Council is genuine about its desire to reach a negotiated settlement of the outstanding equal pay claims, but the evidence suggests that this mindset is not exactly shared by senior officials.
Individuals employees with equal pay claims going back 10 full years could ask that Audit Scotland (Scotland's public spending watchdog) gets directly involved, but this request would carry much more weight if it were supported by local councillors, MSPs, MPs, the First Minister and so on.
And if you ask me, it's high time Glasgow's MSPs rose up and really started getting behind their local constituents in this long-running fight for equal pay.
