Spill the Beans

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 one.

In other words how can anyone tell if a JES is really fair and non-discriminatory - if they don't understand how it works - and they can't compare how well or badly other jobs are paid?  

Now I'm also told that Unison is holding a series of members meetings in August - several years too late arguably - where the union will provide an update on equal pay.

But given that the contributions of ordinary union members paid for this review - I think the best thing Unison can now do is to share the details - and start giving people some straight answers to straight questions.