Blast From The Past

I came across this post from the blog site archive which recalls a shameful attempt by South Lanarkshire Council to have all of its equal pay claims thrown out - because of  criticism on the A4ES blog site.

Now, after all the water that has flowed under the bridge, I think any fair minded person would say that my comments about South Lanarkshire Council - have been perfectly reasonable in the light of everything that has happened since 2005 - when council employees first started to  pursue equal pay claims with Action 4 Equality Scotland.  

In fact, if anything, I think I may have been a bit too polite - because to my mind the  Council had a complete 'brass neck' to complain about me poking fun at their highly secretive local pay arrangements - particularly as this information has been freely available in other Scottish Councils for years.

Now looking back, I have to say it's all quite funny - particularly as South Lanarkshire's much vaunted, in house job evaluation scheme was judged last year by the Employment Tribunals to be 'unfit for purpose' and 'not be be relied upon' in terms of the basic requirements of Equal Pay legislation.

'What a bunch of big babies!', I said to myself at the time - although their intent was deadly serious, of course, and wasted a bit more time and public money until the Employment Tribunal finally threw out this particular complaint

But as my dear old Mum used to say, South Lanarkshire Council must be 'laughing out of the other side of its face' - by now.

South Lanarkshire Loses Challenge (8 December 2008)

South Lanarkshire Council has just lost a vital hearing at the employment tribunals.

The council requested a special Pre-Hearing Review and argued that the claims should not be allowed to proceed - because of the criticism of the council on the Action 4 Equality Scotland blog site.

Now this is a bit rich when you consider that South Lanarkshire Council is the only council in Scotland that stubbornly refuses to admit what traditional male jobs are paid.

Every other council in the land has now shared information about rates of pay for refuse workers, gardeners and gravediggers - even if some of them took their time doing so.

But the employment tribunals rejected South Lanarkshire's arguments - all of the Stefan Cross claims will now proceed - and the council will be required to explain and justify its local pay and grading structures.

Action 4 Equality Scotland will be holding update meetings for South Lanarkshire clients in the New Year - so watch this space for further details.