South Lanarkshire Update

I've received a number of new enquiries regarding equal pay settlements in South Lanarkshire Council (SLC).

Union members in SLC, apparently, are being kept completely in the dark as to how their equal pay 'settlement offers' have been calculated, which sounds crazy if you ask me.

Because how can people be asked to make an informed decision about a 'settlement offer' if they don't know what their equal pay claim is really worth?  

For example, are union members being offered a settlement which is worth 100% of their original claim, 50% of their original claim - or just a pig in a poke?

One of the key issues is how much have low paid union members have lost out on by following their trade unions' advice to not register equal pay claims against South Lanarkshire Council - is it 4, or 5 or perhaps even 6 years worth of a potential settlement?   

So, in my view, the trade unions and their advisers have a duty to come clean and spell these issues out which they can do, for example, by explaining the start date and end date of their members' claims.

If an individual member's claim has not been registered until 2011, for example,then I suspect that this member will have lost out on 5 years, perhaps more, compared to a typical client of Action 4 Equality Scotland. 

The sums of money involved are not 'chickenfeed', of course, and it could be that low paid union members in South Lanarkshire have lots out on thousands of pounds, perhaps more than £10,000 in many cases.

In other words the trade unions have a lot to answer for and if there are 1500 or so union members involved and if £10,000 represents a typical 'loss', then the overall cost to these low paid members would be in the region of £15 million.

Which would represent a very big cost saving to Labour-run South Lanarkshire Council, of course.

If the unions and their advisers refuse to answer these questions, I think it would be possible to make a complaint to the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) and I suspect any such complaint would be upheld.

Because union members are surely entitled to know exactly what they are being invited to accept and if you ask me, the unions' legal advisers have a duty to provide individual members (as their clients) with clear and detailed advice.