Fife Council Update
The news media today is catching up with the report I posted on the blog site back on 6 October 2015 about the equal pay settlement reached with Labour-run Fife Council.
The unions in Fife are trying to claim credit for the Council's decision to settle after all this time, but they have a real brass neck because the unions have ridden on the coattails off Action 4 Equality Scotland all the way.
In fact, if truth be told the unions should be hanging their heads in shame because the 'new' pay arrangements which caused all the problems were negotiated and agreed between Fife Council management and the unions back in 2006/07.
So, just as has happened in other council areas like North and South Lanarkshire, the trade unions have Action 4 Equality Scotland to thank for digging the workforce out of another terrible equal pay mess that the unions helped to create in the first place.
Fife Council Update (06/10/15)
Great news for all Action 4 Equality Scotland clients in Fife - the tribunal hearing against Fife Council which was scheduled to start today in Dundee has been 'sisted' or postponed until 28 February 2016.
Because after a series of last minute negotiations, A4ES has managed to reach a settlement agreement with Fife Council and a detailed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has now been signed between the parties.
Settlement offers from Fife Council will be issued in due course, but this is a big administrative task and will take perhaps four weeks to organise - no letters will be issued by A4ES until this task has been completed.
Once settlement offers have been received and checked detailed letters will be sent out to all individual A4ES clients in Fife.
In the meantime, please don't flood A4ES with email and phone enquiries as this just slows down the whole business of getting further information out to clients in Fife - any further news regarding the timetable will be reported on the blog site.
A big thanks goes to the 'usual suspects' from the A4ES negotiating team who were involved in the last ditch settlement talks including Stefan Cross QC and Karl Bromley.
A special mention also goes to Sarah Gilzean from HBJ Gateley who stepped in at short notice (as regular readers know) and did a splendid, professional job by all accounts, in relation to both the MoU with Fife Council and the preparatory work for the Employment Tribunal.
And to Daphne Romney QC, of course, whose work behind the scenes seems to have convinced Fife Council that they were on a hiding to nothing if the tribunal hearing went ahead as originally planned.
