24 Little Hours
'What a difference a day makes, twenty four little hours.'
Yesterday I put a post on the blog site about political leaders in North Lanarkshire Council ducking their responsibilities - by having a senior council official respond to people's enquiries and concerns on equal pay.
Later that same day more readers contacted me - to say that their own letters were sent out in the name of the Council Leader - Councillor Jim McCabe.
Coincidence or what?
Who knows - but what I do know is that the very act of raising the issues within the the political leaders of the council - is having a big impact.
The two kinds of letter I have seen are virtually identical - save for a few minor differences - so whether a senior official is doing the talking or the council leader - the message is the same.
To my mind the council's standard reply is an insult to people's intelligence - Double Dutch as one person said which is a apt way to describe the content of these letters.
Because North Lanarkshire Council is perfectly able to settle its outstanding cases - yet is trying to make out that its hands are tied - by some mysterious tribunal process.
Which is of course - complete baloney.
The recent settlement in Edinburgh City Council was not ordered by the employment tribunals - and North Lanarkshire Council is perfectly free to reach the same conclusion - especially after hiding behind the Edinburgh 'Wilkinson' case for years.
What's stopping North Lanarkshire Council is its lack of leadership and political will - not anything the employment tribunals have to say.
The same is true of outstanding claims from male council workers which were settled long ago in other areas - and again North Lanarkshire's hands are clearly not tied - by some mysterious and unexplained external forces.
Sounds more like something out of the X-Files - than a serious discussion about the council's obligations over equal pay.
So I suspect the time has come for people to raise their concerns outside - as well inside North Lanarkshire Council.
If the present leadership want to keep their heads stuck in the sand - then the thing to do is to make this a big local issue - in the run up to the council elections in May.
While Edinburgh has given up trying to defend the indefensible - North Lanarkshire Council seems to have taken their place.
But the fact is that people's heads don't button up the back in North Lanarkshire - last time I looked anyway.
So the council's X-Files defence won't fool anyone - it's a Labour administration that's running the council - not Mulder and Scully.
