Calling Glasgow

I've had an excellent response to my earlier post about Glasgow - and the City Council's 2007 pay review - or WPBR for short.

But there are some gaps that I hope Glasgow readers will be able to help me with - because it will help everyone potentially with an outstanding equal pay claims - which means over 5,500 people.

I'd like to speak to male council workers who were doing the following jobs - before and after the WPBR came into play in January 2007:

Gardeners - various grades
Refuse workers abd drivers 
Street sweepers
Road workers - various grades
Gravediggers

The job titles may have changed since 2007 - but that's not important.

What is important is that the way these jobs were treated under the WPBR - compared to other female dominated jobs - may be significant for people who are still pursuing claims.

So if you know someone who can help - even if they have since left the council's employment - then get in touch with Mark Irvine at the e-mail address below.

Calling Glasgow (13 February 2012)

The long-running dispute over Glasgow City Council's Workforce Pay and Benefits Review (WPBR) - is about to take centre stage again.

As regular readers know, Glasgow City Council brought in the WPBR in great haste - after initially denying that Scotland's largest council had any problem with equal pay.

Now as things turned out this was complete nonsense - of course.

Because Glasgow had been turning a blind eye to widespread pay discrimination for years - against low paid, predominantly female jobs - which is what Action 4 Equality Scotland drew to people's attention back in 2005.

Since then Glasgow has reached a partial - but only partial - settlement of people's equal pay claims.

But the council is now arguing that from 1 January 2007 onwards - i.e. the point at which the WPBR was introduced - all of its pay arrangements have been just fine, tickety boo in fact.

The problem is that not everyone agrees with that assessment - me for one - and another 5,500 employees who continue to pursue equal pay claims against Glasgow City Council.

What would help Action 4 Equality Scotland is information - the kind of information that some of our 5,500 clients in Glasgow can help to provide.

For example, back in the early days of the Glasgow equal pay campaign - some male workers came forward to explain how the bonus payments worked.

In one case that springs to mind - the person in question was the husband of one of the many Home Carers in Glasgow - who were all fighting for equal pay at the time.

Now this chap worked in a traditional male job - the kind of job that attracted a big bonus payment every week - unlike the job done by his wife.

Which both he and she thought was terribly unfair - and rightly so.

Mr X - as I shall call him - provided very useful information on how the bonus schemes operated - which helped Action 4 Equality Scotland make mincemeat of the council's alleged defence in court.

So what I'm looking for is a few people who can help this time around as well - to have a look at how traditional male jobs have fared and been treated under the WPBR.

The person might be still working for Glasgow City Council in one of these jobs - or might even have left or retired - since the WPBR came into play on 1 January 2007.

In any event being able to speak to someone who fits this description - in complete confidence of course - would potentially be a big help in all the equal pay claims that are still underway.

So what I'm asking readers in Glasgow to do is to get their thinking caps on - the kind of person I'm looking for might be your 'better half' - maybe a relative, friend or neighbour.

In any event if think you can help, drop me a note at: markirvine@compuserve.com