SLC Update (04/08/15)

A whole bunch of Unison members have been in touch after the post dated 27 July about equal pay settlements in South Lanarkshire Council.

"How come the offers being recommended for acceptance by Unison are so much worse than the settlements achieved by Action 4 Equality Scotland?", is the kind of question that's on people's minds.

Well I don't know, is the honest answer because I don't know how the union offers have been calculated or what they represent as a percentage of the full value of members' claims.

So it's a mystery and Unison seems very reluctant to spell things out which is a very odd way for a trade union to behave if you ask me, especially a trade union that proudly claims to be member-led.

What I do know is that Action 4 Equality Scotland did all the 'heavy lifting' in South Lanarkshire by challenging the Council's discriminatory pay arrangements and its local job evaluation scheme - while the trade unions stood on the sidelines.

In fact I've heard that Unison is now re-writing history by saying that it never actively discouraged members in South Lanarkshire from pursuing an equal pay claim against the Council.

But I'm sure there are posts from the blog site archive to show that they did exactly that and over the next few days I'll remind readers of some of the silly things that Unison has said in years gone by. 

And you never know, these statements may come back and haunt them as Unison members try to hold their own union to account.