North Lanarkshire Update
I came across this post from the blog site archive the other day which is a report from The Daily Record dated 30 June 2010.
I never did find out how this issue was resolved; perhaps the missing documents turned up or maybe the GMB accepted that the union was responsible for 'dropping the ball' and agreed to compensate its members for any financial losses they had incurred.
In any event I'd be very interested to know how things turned out in the end, so if anyone knows what happened drop me a note at: markrivine@compuserve.com
Daily Record - 30 June 2010
A GROUP of North Lanarkshire Council workers may lose out on significant equal pay settlements – because they claim their union have “lost” important documents.
The six female community centre caretakers allege that back in November 2004 they commenced equal pay claims through the GMB union.
All the women say they were represented by the union at the internal grievance hearing stage of the process with North Lanarkshire Council.
In recent weeks the women have been made aware of colleagues and other NLC workers having their claims settled – with offers in some cases in excess of £14,000.
However, when they’ve subsequently contacted the GMB for clarification on the status of their claims, they’ve found out to their horror that none of the claims were registered with the employment tribunals.
This means the women stand to lose out on several years of their claim – money which, given the current financial situation, they can ill afford to lose.
Speaking to the Advertiser, one disgruntled GMB member said: “It’s turned into an absolute nightmare.
“After waiting almost six years, and watching other people begin to receive settlement figures, I’ve been told that my claim was never registered with the appropriate employment tribunal.
“And I have to say that, after all these years of paying my monthly subs to the union, I’ve been extremely disappointed by the way I’ve been treated by GMB.
“ It appears that they’re unwilling to accept that they are at fault.
“I now feel that I’m going to have to take legal advice in an attempt to resolve this situation.”
Mark Irvine from the campaign group Action 4 Equality Scotland said: “This is not the fault of North Lanarkshire Council or the employment tribunals.
“The position is down to the union who failed to protect their members interests properly.
“In the circumstances, you would think that the unions would put their hands up, admit their mistake, and agree to compensate people for their financial loss.
“After all the unions are great big organisations with huge financial resources, compared to ordinary individual members.
“So surely the unions should just do the decent thing and ensure their members don’t lose out?
“But so far at least this hasn’t happened,.
“In fact people are just being fobbed off and have not even been given a sensible explanation as to what went wrong and why?”
Harry Donaldson, regional secretary for GMB, said: “We are not in a position to make any comment at present other than the matter of equal pay claims are the subject of ongoing employment tribunals which I would not wish to prejudice.”
The Advertiser recently reported how North Lanarkshire Council are being made to pay almost £16 million to hundreds of disgruntled workers in order to avoid further costly legal proceedings over equal pay claims.
A tribunal hearing had been due to begin on Monday, April 19, regarding employees’ claims including former manual catering and cleaning staff, a number of caretakers, school crossing patrollers, bus escorts and home support workers.
However, after negotiations, the council agreed to settle these claims for a whopping £15.7million.
Campaign group Action 4 Equality Scotland said some of the claims have dragged on for many years and involve over 1600 dissatisfied workers.
And the final bill could be considerably higher as equal pay Action 4 Equality Scotland say many employees still have claims outstanding.
