Job Evaluation Appeals
A reader from Fife has been in touch regarding job evaluation appeals - apparently Fife Council's procedures allow for only two very narrow grounds of appeal which are:
That a job has been been:
- matched to the wrong job family and/or
- matched to the wrong level within the job family
What people need to undertsand is that the employers are making up these rules as they go along - sometimes with the tacit support or acquiesence of the trade unions.
Which is why so many people are taking the cases up via an equal pay claim - because that takes the issue outside of the council - and the employers are no longer judge and jury in their own cause.
In Glasgow, for example, the council's new pay and grading structure awards extra points (and pay) simply for working full-time or for doing a 'task and finish' job.
In our view, these conditions discriminate against female dominated jobs - where task and finish is not an option and where many people work part-time, not full-time, hours.
So, these 'rules' can and should be challenged - especially if they have been invented out of thin air and purely for the convenience of the employers.
The starting point is to understand how all jobs have been scored - relative to one another - because that's the only way for people to know whether some jobs have been treated more favourably than others.
The 1999 Single Status Agreement states that appeal procedures should be agreed locally - but surely no trade union would agree to a set of rules that blatantly favours the employers and ties the hands of its own members?
That a job has been been:
- matched to the wrong job family and/or
- matched to the wrong level within the job family
What people need to undertsand is that the employers are making up these rules as they go along - sometimes with the tacit support or acquiesence of the trade unions.
Which is why so many people are taking the cases up via an equal pay claim - because that takes the issue outside of the council - and the employers are no longer judge and jury in their own cause.
In Glasgow, for example, the council's new pay and grading structure awards extra points (and pay) simply for working full-time or for doing a 'task and finish' job.
In our view, these conditions discriminate against female dominated jobs - where task and finish is not an option and where many people work part-time, not full-time, hours.
So, these 'rules' can and should be challenged - especially if they have been invented out of thin air and purely for the convenience of the employers.
The starting point is to understand how all jobs have been scored - relative to one another - because that's the only way for people to know whether some jobs have been treated more favourably than others.
The 1999 Single Status Agreement states that appeal procedures should be agreed locally - but surely no trade union would agree to a set of rules that blatantly favours the employers and ties the hands of its own members?
