Men and Women

A reader from South Lanarkshire asked me a question about claims from male workers the other day - here's a copy of my reply.

Dear A

South Lanarkshire and Equal Pay

Your claim as a male carer is just as valid as your women colleagues.

As you say it's a scandal that council workers doing unskilled, traditional jobs with few, if any, significant responsibilities - are paid much more than than carers, for example, who are in a position of great trust.

The same applies to many other female dominated jobs such as catering workers and classroom assistants - or people doing Admin & Clerical jobs for the council.

Action 4 Equality Scotland (A4ES) represents many thousands of council workers across Scotland and has led the fight for equal pay - right from the outset.

We have achieved successful settlements on behalf of male carers in many other councils including Glasgow and North Lanarkshire, for example.

Whether people are members of a trade union or not makes absolutely no difference to A4ES - although I think it's fair to say that, in some parts of the country, the council employers and the trade unions are far too close.

To my mind the cosy nature of this relationshipe explains why equal pay was a dead issue in Scotland until 2005 - when A4ES came along and started to explain the huge pay gap between traditional male and female dominated jobs.

The key point is that if a council refuse worker or gardener is paid £10 or £11 an hour, how can it possibly be justified that so many female dominated jobs - are paid so much less?  

Kind regards


Mark