Private Eye (14/07/15)
Here's another great story from Private Eye, the UK's best and only fortnightly satirical magazine, which will no doubt strike a chord with GMB members in North Lanarkshire Council who are still fighting for equal pay.
The only problem is that they're fighting to overcome the incompetence of their own union (the GMB), as well as discriminatory pay arrangements put in place by their employer.
When Sir Paul Kenny, the general-secretary of the GMB union, accepted a knighthood in the Queen's birthday honours, he claimed he did so "to highlight the importance of trade unions".
This did not impress hundreds of GMB members in Scotland, who believe their union has let them down badly. The disgruntled members, most of whom ate women in low paid jobs, including dinner ladies home carers and cleaners, are employed by North Lanarkshire council. The council recently settled a long-running equal pay claim with the unions Unison and Unite, the law firm Fox & Partners and Action 4 Equality Scotland.
More than 4,000 council employees shared £70 million in backdated wages - but the 500 GMB members who work for the council were not among them, because the GMB had chosen not to be part of the process.
As the backdating is from 2006, with one individual receiving £100,000 , those left out are angry with their union for going it alone. Had they been included in the deal they would have been collectively £2.5 million richer.
The GMB had advised its members to accept just three years back payor, as one GMB official is said to have told a member, "run the risk of losing even that". One member described the situation as a "shambles" and blogged on the Action 4 Equality Scotland website: "I am just finding out how negligent our union has been over our claim.
Arise, Sir Paul!
'Blackleg'
