Questions and Answers

A regular reader from South Lanarkshire has been touch - to say that she attended a local Unison meeting on equal pay during the week - but was 'disgusted' at the union's attitude.

Apparently, the meeting was a waste of time with only a handful of people present - and their questions were simply batted back and/or blamed on South Lanarkshire Council.

Now the council is ultimately responsible for the pay arrangements within the workforce - but the fact of the matter is that these pay arrangements have not been secretly imposed on the trade unions.

Instead they have been negotiated and agreed over a period of years - so the unions do know 'where the bodies are buried', so to speak - and cannot simply wash their hands of the whole affair.

Here are some questions that the trade unions can and should answer - because a positive response can only benefit the interests of ordinary union members.  

Questions and Answers (4 August 2012)

Lots of regular readers have been in touch to say that the local Unison branch in South Lanarkshire is holding a series of meetings starting next week - to explain to members what's happening on equal pay.

Now some would say that this is much too little and much too late - myself included.

Not least because Action 4 Equality Scotland (A4ES) was holding such meetings several years ago - as far back as 2005/06 in fact.

As you would expect the A4ES meetings highlighted the huge pay gap between male and female jobs council jobs - the all too obvious problems with South Lanarkshire's 'in-house' job evaluation scheme - and people's ability to pursue equal pay claims against the Council.

So here are some questions that local union members might like to ask at these meetings - especially as the Employment Tribunals have decided that the Council's 'in-house' job evaluation scheme does not comply with the 1970 Equal Pay Act:

1 Will the trade unions now withdraw their support for the Council's local 'in-house' job evaluation scheme (JES)?

2 Will the trade unions demand the introduction of a tried and tested JE scheme - such as the Gauge scheme which has been specifically developed for use by councils in Scotland and which has national trade union support?

3 Will the trade unions demand that the Council now produces a rank order of jobs to show the before and after effect of the 'in-house' JES - on traditional male and female jobs?

4 Will the unions now demand that the Council publishes the pay information relating to male and female jobs - so that the workforce can see for itself how all of these jobs are paid?

5 Do the trade unions accept that this information is essential for people to understand how the Council's pay arrangements operate - and what the pay differences are between male and female jobs?

6 Will the trade unions call upon the Council to abandon its ridiculous appeal to the UK Supreme Court regarding such pay information - having previously been instructed to disclose the details by the Scottish Information Commissioner and Scotland's highest civil court, the Court of Session?

7 Will Unison now publish the details of the independent review which made criticisms of the Council's local 'in-house' job evaluation scheme?

Now that would seem to be to be enough to be getting on with - a starter for 10 if you like - but if readers have any other suggestions to make, feel free to drop me a note - and I'll share these on the blog site.