North Lanarkshire Update

A 'little bird' tells me that the GMB regional secretary in Scotland, Harry Donaldson, has been removed from his post and replaced by a chap called Gary Smith, who is now 'acting' regional secretary north of the border.

Now can this just be coincidence?

Or does it have something to do with the debacle in North Lanarkshire where GMB members are fighting their own union as well as the Labour-run Council over their rights to equal pay.

Here's what I said on the subject recently to Neil McGrory from the Cumbernauld News: 

“Up to 500 GMB members are still fighting for their rights to equal pay in North Lanarkshire, but sadly they are having to battle with their own union as well as the Labour-run council which has operated discriminatory pay practices for many years. 

“The problem is that the GMB decided to restrict the claims of its members to only three years whereas all the other claimant organisations (including Unison and Unite) followed Action 4 Equality Scotland in challenging the council’s pay arrangements and the ‘new’ job evaluation scheme North Lanarkshire introduced in 2007. 

“The fair and sensible thing would be for the GMB to accept its responsibility for creating this mess and give members in North Lanarkshire a guarantee that the union will compensate them for any financial loss they suffer, if the GMB is unable to put things right via the Employment Tribunal process.” 

So let's hope that this is a sign of some fresh thinking at GMB Scotland because low paid union members in North Lanarkshire are certainly not responsible for the mess they find themselves in today.