Mark Irvine - Blogger, Campaigner, Organiser

Trade unions are always banging on about the importance of National Agreements - and for good reason. Because the employers have much greater resources to call upon - as a general rule - than the trade unions, particularly at a local level. So it makes sense to stick together - to use the expertise and resources embodied in  National Agreements - instead of strking out on your own where you are likely to get picked off.  In which case you need to ask yourself why the trade unions in South Lanarkshire gave their support to a local 'in-house' job evaluation scheme (JES) in 2004? Especially when a bespoke national scheme had been developed for use by Scottish councils - with national trade union support. Now the local South Lanarkshire scheme has come unstuck which is hardly suprising. Because it is the opposite of 'open and transparent' which a JES should be - yet no one in South Lanarkshire can tell what anyone else gets paid - wh...

I am a great admirer of America and the American people - in many but not all things. One issue that divides America is gun control which seems to drive some folks mad - including the former Hollywood actor - Charlton Heston. Now Charlton played many great roles including Ben Hur and El Cid - though Soylent Green is best skipped over it has to be said. But Charlton once defiantly announced to a National Rifle Association (NRA) event that the gun control lobby would have to prise his beloved rifle 'from his cold dead hands' - so persuaded was old Charlton the right of every American citizen to bear arms. The point that escapes me however is with so many American citizens bearing all these arms - why do the crazed shooters who hit the headlines with such terrible regularity never get stopped in their tracks? Why does someone like Charlton Heston not stand up when the sh...

I read recently that the BBC is spending £130,000 on a redundant chauffeur-driven car - which sounds incredible in these srticken economic times. The reason for this madness is that the new Chairperson of the BBC - Lord Chris Patten (a former minister in the Thatcher government of course) - has refused to use the chauffeur-driven car because it's a waste of public money. Apparently Lord Patten declined the offer - explaining that he would use public transport instead. Good for him - but how embarrassing for the BBC! Meanwhile the Beeb continues to pour this money down a proverbial drain - because the cost of cancelling the contract is too great - and it's better to wait until the contract comes to its natural end. So other senior managers at the BBC are being driven around in luxury - instead of following the example of their new leader, Lord Patten. Not many people know this - but the general secretary of the TUC was always provided with a cha...

A thought occurred to me the other day - about the state of 21st century Scotland. Isn't it crazy that people are entitled to know the salary of Scotland's soon to be appointed 'top cop' - yet South Lanarkshire Council tells the world that we are not entitled to know what a council refuse worker or gravedigger gets paid? The newspapers reported yesterday that the chief constable of Scotland's new single police force will be paid a salary of £208,000 - although it's not clear whether this figures includes pension contributions. I suspect not - but it's still an eye-watering amount of money in anyone's language - though I can't say I'm entirely convinced that a figure of £208,000 is justified - given what other senior public officials in Scotland are paid. Anyway put that aside for another day. For the moment just reflect on the fact that a major Scottish council - a Labour-led council - is refusing to abide by a...

I read the following ' Jobs for the boys' article in The Scotsman newspaper - the other day. What the piece doesn't refer to is that Tom McCabe was the leader of South Lanarkshire Council back in 1999 - the same year that he was elected to the Scottish Parliament. 1999 was also the year in which South Lanarkshire Council made key decisions about how to progress the 1999 Single Status (Equal Pay) Agreement locally - though it took the council another five years to finally put these arrangements into place. I first met Tom McCabe when we were both members of the Scottish TUC's Youth Committee - at the time I represented NUPE (now part of Unison) while Tom represented the AUEW, if I remember correctly, the engineers' union - which is now part of Unite, of course.  So it seems that Tom has landed a new job in Glasgow - which doesn't surprise me in the least. What I do find interesting though is that Glasgow seems relaxed about releasin...

I said to myself just the other day - in the wake of the John Terry affair - that the words 'get your choc ice here' will no longer have such an innocent ring. John Terry, of course, is the captain of Chelsea Football Club and was accused of racially abusing another player during a game - Anton Ferdinand, who plays for Queens Park Rangers. The case ended up in court but John Terry was sensationally acquitted - after a convoluted defence which saw a fellow Chelsea play (a black player) - Ashley Cole - give evidence on Terry's behalf.  For his trouble Ashley Cole was then described on Twitter as a 'choc ice' - i.e. black on the outside but white on the inside. By none other than Rio Ferdinand - the Manchester United defender who was dropped from the recent England Euro 2012 squad - and Anton Ferdinand's brother, of course. Now all of this just goes to show - to my mind anyway - that the brains of most footballers still lie mainly in ...

A kind reader has sent me a copy of the latest members' briefing - from the local Unison branch in South Lanarkshire Council. Now this document tries to gloss over the trade union's behaviour in relation to equal pay, but the following extract is very interesting: "However we undetook a review of the scheme, using outside experts, who indicated issues with its transparency....". Now this raises a number of important questions which union members might wish to raise with Unison such as: 1 When exactly was this Unison review carried out? 2 Who conducted the review and what were the key conclusions? 3 Will Unison now publish the review and share this infrormation with ordinary union members? Now the reason for asking these questions is that the fundamental problem with the Council's 'in-house' job evaluation scheme (JES) - i.e. its complete lack of openness and transparency - was completely obvious from day o...

The acquittal of Simon Harwood - the police officer accused of the manslaughter of Ian Tomlinson (a Big Issue seller) at the G20 protests in London in 2009 - aroused lots of comment in the press over the weekend. Many people were rightly astonished that Simon Harwood was a serving police officer - in the first place. Because the man has an extensive disciplinary record which included taking early medical retirement in 2001 - after being accused of a 'road rage' assault on another driver with whom he he had a minor traffic collision while off duty. Simon Harwood picked up a job as a police civilian almost immediately after his retirement on medical grounds - before returning to front line duty a few years later with the Surrey Police. Now all of this is a crazy as it sounds - but the rules which govern police discipline are as old as the hills and completely discredited - by any modern standards at least. For exa...

I read an interesting story over the weekend - about the forthcoming Olympic Games in London.   Apparently, Japan's World Cup-winning women's football team flew to London in bog standard economy seats - while the much less distinguished male team went business class. Now the women have a good chance of winning gold - so they say - but the Japanese men aren't even expected to get a medal - according to the pundits. Mari Miura, Professor of Political Science at Sophia University in Tokyo, said: “It was symbolic of general discrimination against women.” Now I don't know whether the women's treatment comes down to the 'conspiracy or cock-up theory' of history - but in my view it makes no difference at all - because the outcome as far as the women are concerned is exactly the same. So I agree with   Professor Miura from Sophia University - the Japanese authorities should be ashamed of themselves .

I enjoyed this cartoon by Peter Brookes which appeared in The Times newspaper the other day. Power is slowly slipping away from Syria's current president - Bashar al Assad - but I suspect this ghastly tyrant will still escape justice - most likely courtesy of Russia Russia is one of the few countries which is intent on propping up the current Syrian regime for as long as it can - President Putin and power politics are at work here - not values and principles. So the big question is whether or not the outcome of Syria's civil war - can avoid replacing one tyranny with another .

This week's Hamilton Advertiser carries an excellent article by Carol Fox - from Fox Cross Solicitors. As well as putting the local trade unions firmly in their place - Carol gives a flavour of why the Employment Tribunal decided that the council's job 'in-house' evaluation scheme (JES) does not comply with the Equal Pay Act 1970 and the Equality Act 2010. Now this is a devastating decision for the council - because job evaluation schemes  and the pay arrangements which flow from implementing a JES - should be completely transparent and easy to understand. Which is certainly not the case in South Lanarkshire - where the council refuses to publish the pay rates of traditional male jobs - despite the fact that such information is freely available in every other council in Scotland. Lawyer for South Lanarkshire equal pay claimants hits back at UNISON criticism ‘Unison has continued to deduct monthly subscriptions from the very same women who th...

I was watching a bit of the Tour de France cycle race the other day when I noticed that the race leader - the UK's very own Bradley Wiggins - was sporting a handsome set of 'sideburns'. Now sideburns have been out of fashion for years - perhaps since the 1970s. Yet this has not always been so which reminded me of the following piece of very interesting - if useless - information. Because the word sideburns is actually an anagram of Burnside - named after a famous major general in the American Civil War (1861 to 1865) - whose impressive 'mutton chops' became known more commonly as 'sideburns'. Now Bradley Wiggins has a long way to go before he gets anyway near Major General Burnside. But I wonder if Bradley knows that he's following in the footsteps of such history - as he powers towards a well deserved victory in Paris on Sunday.

The following article appears in today's Daily Record newspaper. Mary Caldwell was one of the first carer's in Glasgow to take an equal pay claim up with Action 4 Equality Scotland - which was successful of course. Mary's unfair dismissal case against Glasgow City Council was pursued by Brian McLaughlin at Fox Cross solicitors - after Mary's trade union refused to get involved. So I'm really pleased that Mary's claim has been upheld by the Employment Tribunals. Because just like all the carers I've ever met in Glasgow - Mary is a thoroughly decent person - the salt of the earth in fact. Home carer wins £11k for unfair dismissal after helping sick boy By Ashlie McAnally A CARER who defied bosses to give the best care to a disabled child has won almost £11,000 at a tribunal after being sacked for fiddling timesheets. Home support worker Mary Caldwell, 59, who worked 37 hours a week with Glasgow City Council, started work at 7.15am to look afte...

I posted a letter from a Unison member in South Lanarkshire last week - who is very  unhappy at the behaviour of the union in the ongoing fight for equal pay - see post dated 10 July 2012: 'Bold, Free and Truthful'. The same person has sent me a further exchange of e-mails with Unison which I also thought I'd share with readers as well - not just in the interests of encouraging an open and healthy debate - but also because I think the union sounds terribly weak and unconvincing. Now Unison appears to concede (finally) that pay discrimination may exist in South Lanarkshire - which we have been saying all along of course - and that the way to determine this is to compare the actual jobs and pay of traditional male and female jobs within South Lanarkshire Council. Which is exactly what Action 4 Equality Scotland has been campaigning for - for years - from 2005 in fact. For most of t...

Here's a post from the blog site archive which captures the shameless behaviour of South Lanarkshire Council over Scotland's Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation. So far as I know the Scottish Labour party has yet to say anything critical about the behaviour of this Labour-led council - yet it has plenty to say about FOI when it comes to other people and other organisations. Maybe South Lanarkshire's MSPs will have something to say on the matter - let's see what happens in the weeks ahead.     Actions and Words (7 May 2012) The Scottish Information Commissioner (SIC) contacted me last Thursday to say that South Lanarkshire Council (SLC) intends to lodge an appeal - over the recent Freedom of Information (FOI) case at the Court of Session. The one in which three senior Scottish judges decided - unanimously - that South Lanarkshire Council should be required to publish pay information regarding the pay of male dominate...

I read another example of Labour party hypocrisy on Freedom of Information (FOI) - just the other day. I never ceased to be amazed at the way the Labour party shamelessly demands everyone else to observe high standards - when it comes to FOI legislation. Yet turns a blind eye and has nothing to say when - for example- the Labour led Council in South Lanarkshire not only refuses to abide by a decision of the Scottish Information Commissioner (SIC) - but also three senior judges in the Court of Session, Scotland's highest civil court. Here's what a Labour MEP - Catherine Stihler - had to say recently about a row involving the Scottish Government:  "This shameless cover-up will cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and may not even be settled before the referendum takes place." Ms Stihler accused the Nationalists of using taxpayers' money to keep anything to do with independence secret. Before going on to add: "Eithe...