Dirty Deeds in Falkirk
The controversy has been caused by a recent letter from the Unison branch secretary, Gray Allan - who is now railing against the council, condemning its behaviour, calling it nasty names - and deservedly so - because Falkirk is guilty of bully boy tactics. Falkirk is the only council in Scotland, so far, to dismiss and re-engage its staff on new 'single status' contracts.
But in 2002, Gray Allan and his union chums were only too happy to do the council's dirty work when it came to reorganising the home care service. The (largely female) workforce were told that they had to accept a new shift pattern (4 on and 4 off) and a new 'all inclusive' rate of pay - which meant that they would no longer receive enhanced payments for working shifts and weekends.
At a series of 'roadshow' meetings, all three trade unions (Unison, GMB and TGWU) lined up alongside the management and told the women workers that they had no choice - if they refused to accept the changes and proposed new package - the result would be chaos, cuts and major job losses.
So, the blunt message to the women workers was: "Do as you're told - or else!"
Faced with this intimidation from management and lack of support from their trade unions, the workforce - not surprisingly - caved in and the council got its way. But what the management and trade unions conveniently failed to explain was that only the women carers were treated in this way - all of the male dominated jobs kept their bonuses, shift payments and weekend enhancements.
Now this was completely wrong and discriminatory - and unlawful to boot - but the trade unions deliberately kept this information from their women members, and by doing so completely betrayed their interests.
In 1999, the employers and the trade unions signed a landmark Equal Pay Agreement saying they would end discrimination against women workers. Yet, in Falkirk in 2002 the unions and the employers were quite prepared to treat a key group of women workers in a quite different way to their male colleagues!
Falkirk is not the only area where this has happened - West Lothian, Perth & Kinross, North Ayrshire, Edinburgh and Fife have all introduced similar schemes - for at least parts of their home care service - with the women workers being forced to make sacrifices and accept changes not even put to the men.
Sadly, this is all too typical of the role of trade unions have played on equal pay. In reality, they are often on the employers' side and they are just keen to keep people in the dark - because they realise that knowledge is power. If women union members in Falkirk knew then what they know now, they would take a stick to the people charged with representing them properly - with fairness and integrity.
The truth is that many trade union branches have become 'chum clubs' - where the same tired old, faces run the show for year after year, after year. These kind of local union branches are moribund, undemocratic - run in the interests of a handful of activists, not the interests of ordinary union members.
So, take Gray Allan and Unison's current protests with a very large pinch of salt. Falkirk Council, like many others, has behaved very badly over equal pay and single status. But back in 2002 the trade unions were part of the problem - doing the employers dirty work and helping to force through deals which blatantly discriminated against their own women members.
And the people responsible for betraying the women members in Falkirk in 2002 - are the same ones that are in charge today. The truth is that these individuals - and others like them - have lost all credibility when it comes to equal pay.
