South Lanarkshire Update

My recent post about equal pay settlement offers in South Lanarkshire Council has attracted a lot of interest.

Union members complain that settlement offers are not explained in any detail and cover only contracted hours - not all hours worked which would include overtime, for example.

Apparently union members are being told, more or less, to take it or leave it which seems a very shabby way to treat people if you ask me.

One union member reported that her equal pay claim should have been lodged with the Employment Tribunals in 2010, but that this was not done until 2011 which means that she has lost a whole year of her claim although through no fault of her own.

So if I were a union member in South Lanarkshire, I would insist on being treated with some dignity and respect before accepting or rejecting any offer of settlement.

Specifically, I would wish to know

1. How the offer is calculated
2. The period covered by the offer - start and end dates
3. The estimated value of my claim if this were yo be settled successfully at the Employment Tribunals
4. How much of my claim is being recovered, as a percentage of its total value, in the current settlement offer - 50%, 60% 70% or more  

Now it goes without saying that this information ought to be conveyed in writing and people ought to be given proper time to raise any issues.

What's not right is if people are being railroaded into making a such an important decision with only scant and partial information about the true value of their claims.