Union Speaks with Forked Tongue
Not for the first time, the unions in Glasgow are speaking with forked tongues.
The GMB is proclaiming a great victory for Home Care Coordinators who have been partially successful in an appeal about their new grades - introduced after a local pay and benefits review (more commonly known as a job evaluation scheme).
As ever, the reality is very different from the GMB's propaganda.
Home Care Coordinators had been placed on the same grade as the people they supervise - and so were getting no recognition for the additional responsibilities required in their jobs, which job evaluation is supposed to be all about!
After winning on only one ground of appeal, there has been a slight improvement in their pay scale which now runs from £16,359 for a new entrant to £17,883 for an experienced worker - even though both are required to carry out the same duties and deal with the same range clients!
But, what the GMB fails to say is that even the highest paid Home Care Coordinator is still well below the present pay of a council refuse driver and certain grades of gardener - who are both on a lower grade than the Home Care Coordinator, yet still earn much more - well over £3,000 a year more in some cases. How crazy is that?
Glasgow City Council (with the craven support of the unions) has agreed to protect the much higher earnings of the male workers for years to come - having held down the pay of the women workers for many years. But, significantly, neither the council nor the trade unions are arguing that the pay of the women should be increased to the same level as the men.
So, even after the local job evaluation exercise relatively unskilled male workers will be paid more than women workers whose jobs carry much greater responsibility.
The size of the pay gap is well known to the GMB, TGWU and Unison - and the unions are lying through their teeth when they say they don't know how much more the men earn.
Why? Because the unions negotiated the bonus schemes in the first place - and their local stewards know the earnings of their male colleagues down to the last penny. The unions could give their women members this information in a heartbeat - if they wanted to - but they don't because it would show just how culpable they are for deliberately concealing the size of the pay gap from their women members all these years.
The best answer from the Home Care Coordinators is to continue their fight for equal pay with the men - whether at the bottom or top of the new scale. All Glasgow's Home Care Coordinators have equal pay claims, even after the pay and benefits review, worth somewhere between £7,000 - £11,000 over the three year protection period - and a great deal more if pay protection for the men goes on indefinitely, as it might well do.
While the unions are keen to blow their own trumpets - their women members are not getting the advice they deserve.
The GMB is proclaiming a great victory for Home Care Coordinators who have been partially successful in an appeal about their new grades - introduced after a local pay and benefits review (more commonly known as a job evaluation scheme).
As ever, the reality is very different from the GMB's propaganda.
Home Care Coordinators had been placed on the same grade as the people they supervise - and so were getting no recognition for the additional responsibilities required in their jobs, which job evaluation is supposed to be all about!
After winning on only one ground of appeal, there has been a slight improvement in their pay scale which now runs from £16,359 for a new entrant to £17,883 for an experienced worker - even though both are required to carry out the same duties and deal with the same range clients!
But, what the GMB fails to say is that even the highest paid Home Care Coordinator is still well below the present pay of a council refuse driver and certain grades of gardener - who are both on a lower grade than the Home Care Coordinator, yet still earn much more - well over £3,000 a year more in some cases. How crazy is that?
Glasgow City Council (with the craven support of the unions) has agreed to protect the much higher earnings of the male workers for years to come - having held down the pay of the women workers for many years. But, significantly, neither the council nor the trade unions are arguing that the pay of the women should be increased to the same level as the men.
So, even after the local job evaluation exercise relatively unskilled male workers will be paid more than women workers whose jobs carry much greater responsibility.
The size of the pay gap is well known to the GMB, TGWU and Unison - and the unions are lying through their teeth when they say they don't know how much more the men earn.
Why? Because the unions negotiated the bonus schemes in the first place - and their local stewards know the earnings of their male colleagues down to the last penny. The unions could give their women members this information in a heartbeat - if they wanted to - but they don't because it would show just how culpable they are for deliberately concealing the size of the pay gap from their women members all these years.
The best answer from the Home Care Coordinators is to continue their fight for equal pay with the men - whether at the bottom or top of the new scale. All Glasgow's Home Care Coordinators have equal pay claims, even after the pay and benefits review, worth somewhere between £7,000 - £11,000 over the three year protection period - and a great deal more if pay protection for the men goes on indefinitely, as it might well do.
While the unions are keen to blow their own trumpets - their women members are not getting the advice they deserve.
