Single Status and Job Evaluation
A number of readers from Fife have been in touch - they have been invited to attend a meeting to discuss the outcome of their internal job evaluation appeals.
Lots of people - not just those in the good kingdom of Fife - get confused about Single Status, job evaluation and equal pay.
What's the difference? - folks want to know.
Well Single Status relates to an agreement signed in 1999 by the council employers and trade unions in Scotland - both sides regarded many female jobs as undervalued and underpaid - and the new agreement was intended to tackle these problems.
The key to doing so was the introduction of a new and fair job evaluation scheme (JES) - which would reward people on the basis of their skills and responsibilities.
A job evaluation scheme is, potentially, a defence against an equal pay claim - so long as it is operated fairly and objectively - and does not favour some groups or jobs over others.
A job evaluation scheme operates locally - within its own rules and procedures - which are normally agreed with the trade unions - because without trade union cooperation a job evaluation scheme is almost impossible to impose on a workforce.
Scotland's councils and trade unions were supposed to bring in a new JES by April 2002 - but this deadline came and went - before another one was agreed for April 2004.
But nothing much happened in 2004 either - no big debates within Scotland's 32 councils, no high profile campaigns or threats of strike action by the unions - because it suited them both just to blame the lack of progress on each other.
An equal pay claim is about the law of the land - an Equal Pay Act was first introduced in 1970 - and has been strengthened since through various other pieces of legislation.
A valid equal pay claim can jump over the rules and procedures operated by individual councils - to test whatever is in dispute at the Employment Tribunals.
And ever since 2005 - when Action 4 Equality Scotland first appeared on the scene - that's what many people have decided to do - because of the empty promises and failed deadlines from the employers and the trade unions.
Lots of people - not just those in the good kingdom of Fife - get confused about Single Status, job evaluation and equal pay.
What's the difference? - folks want to know.
Well Single Status relates to an agreement signed in 1999 by the council employers and trade unions in Scotland - both sides regarded many female jobs as undervalued and underpaid - and the new agreement was intended to tackle these problems.
The key to doing so was the introduction of a new and fair job evaluation scheme (JES) - which would reward people on the basis of their skills and responsibilities.
A job evaluation scheme is, potentially, a defence against an equal pay claim - so long as it is operated fairly and objectively - and does not favour some groups or jobs over others.
A job evaluation scheme operates locally - within its own rules and procedures - which are normally agreed with the trade unions - because without trade union cooperation a job evaluation scheme is almost impossible to impose on a workforce.
Scotland's councils and trade unions were supposed to bring in a new JES by April 2002 - but this deadline came and went - before another one was agreed for April 2004.
But nothing much happened in 2004 either - no big debates within Scotland's 32 councils, no high profile campaigns or threats of strike action by the unions - because it suited them both just to blame the lack of progress on each other.
An equal pay claim is about the law of the land - an Equal Pay Act was first introduced in 1970 - and has been strengthened since through various other pieces of legislation.
A valid equal pay claim can jump over the rules and procedures operated by individual councils - to test whatever is in dispute at the Employment Tribunals.
And ever since 2005 - when Action 4 Equality Scotland first appeared on the scene - that's what many people have decided to do - because of the empty promises and failed deadlines from the employers and the trade unions.
