Mark Irvine - Blogger, Campaigner, Organiser

A war of words is underway about whether the UK should participate in the bombing campaign against the mad dogs of the Islamic State in their safe havens in Syria. In Raqqa, for example, where 'Jihadi John' was taken out in a targeted strike from an American drone missile. Now people like Jeremy Corbyn say that it would have been ' far  better' if Mohammed Emwazi (aka Jihadi John) had been captured and put on trial for his cowardly, murderous crimes, but this would have put the lives of UK or Nato troops at risk. Not only that, of course, because people like Jeremy Corbyn and his friends in the Stop the War (STW) Coalition would then have complained that western troops were acting unlawfully by taking military action in another country (Syria) without the permission of the Syrian Government. In my view the arguments about extending military action into Syria are finely balanced - there are no guarantees of success of success and there are obvious risks one way

Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet is a hand-picked team of Labour politicians chosen by the party leader as a government-in-waiting, capable of beating the Conservatives at the next general election in 2020. But instead of leading a motivated team, Jeremy Corbyn as team captain has lurched from one disaster to another, to the point where the the majority of his shadow cabinet and many of Labour's backbench MPs are in open revolt.  Not surprising perhaps since Jezza has been a serial Labour rebel throughout his 30 plus years in the House of Commons. So demands for fellow MPs to deny their political instincts and fall in loyally behind his leadership must have a terribly hollow ring to Labour politicians who have 'mandates' from  voters in their own local constituencies. Euan McColm in this hard-hitting piece for Scotland on Sunday suggest that under Corbyn's leadership the Labour Party may be in terminal decline.      http://www.scotsman.com/news/euan-mccolm

I get email enquiries on a daily basis asking for updates on equal pay and my answer is always the same - all the news I have is shared on the blog site and/or Twitter. Although things are always happening behind the scenes, it's never sensible to speculate on what may happen until events take a decisive turn one way or the other.  Discussion are taking place in Falkirk, for example, and this may lead to a settlement of all the outstanding equal pay claims, but only time will tell. If there is not a negotiated settlement, an important tribunal hearing on the horizon which is scheduled to take place on 23 February 2016 - no doubt this will concentrate minds on the Council side.  Because the tribunal hearing in February will be asked to disclose all kinds of  sensitive  pay information which the Council has been trying to keep under wraps all this time.

A reader from Falkirk has been in touch to provide me with the following link to the web page of the local Unison branch which leads to a report from the Unison branch secretary - none other than Gray Allan. http://www.unisonfalkirk.org.uk/#!news-and-reports/c24vq Now I have to say I am amazed that someone can occupy a senior union position and a senior position in the Labour Party at the same time. When I worked with NUPE (one of the partners unions that formed Unison) we occasionally had full-time officials who were elected Labour councillors. But the potential conflict of interest between the two roles was   resolved by ensuring that the individuals concerned were not allowed to represent an areas as a union officials, if the person had a role in that same area on behalf of the Labour Party as well. In other words, a NUPE official would never have been allowed to represent union members in Glasgow City Council, if that person had a senior role in the Glasgow Labour Party or

Here's an article from the BBC dated 24 November 2015 which reports on a decision of the Falkirk Labour Party to appoint a new chairman in the shape of Gray Allan.  Now Gray has been around for 'donkey's years', as they say, and he was on the scene back in the 1990s when I acted as Unison's chief negotiator and Head of Local Government in Scotland. What I'd like to know is whether Gray is still involved in Labour/union politics to this day and if so, in what capacity? Because there are some big issues at stake in relation to equal pay and I would say there's an obvious issue in a Labour-run council if someone occupies both a senior union position and a senior Labour Party at one and the same time.   Falkirk's Labour Party elects new chairman, following vote-rigging claims BBC   Tayside and Central Scotland Image caption - Gray Allan was voted chairman at the constituency party's annual general meeting on Sunday afternoon The Falkirk

Here's an extract from the 2015 Annual Report to the Falkirk Unison branch (sent to me by a reader) which takes a very laid back approach, if you ask me, to all the outstanding equal pay claims against Falkirk Council. Because the reference to "Bainbridge claims" suggests that all Unison is concerned about is the protection period covering male workers jobs, rather than the JES scores and grades (which appear to favour traditional male jobs) and the arrangements for assimilating staff to the new pay structures (in 2006) whereby most of the men went to the top of the scale while all the women went to the bottom. So if I were a union member in Falkirk I'd start asking some searching questions of my union reps PDQ (pretty damn quick), because this looks to me as if the unions have taken their eye off the ball, as the GMB did in North Lanarkshire recently.     By the way, the key objective of the 1999 Single Status (Equal Pay) Agreement was to deliver a new deal f

Great news for A4ES clients still fighting for equal pay in North Lanarkshire! The long-running Glasgow Employment Tribunal has found in favour of Clerical Workers and Sheltered Housing Wardens whose jobs, according to North Lanarkshire Council, could not be readily compared to the job done by a Council refuse collector. The Council's case is that these two female dominated jobs are not of equal value to the male job, even though to most people this must seem quite bizarre given the skill levels and obvious responsibilities demanded of the housing wardens and clerical workers. The tribunal preferred the evidence of the two witnesses called on behalf of the A4ES claimants who did a really great job on behalf of all their work colleagues by knocking the management's case into a cocked-hat The only downside is that instead of throwing in the towel and conceding defeat North Lanarkshire Council seems intent on pursuing this case to a further tribunal hearing or hearings w

A number of readers have been in touch about the outstanding Employment Tribunal decision affecting Classroom Assistants, Clerical Assistants and Housing Wardens in North Lanarkshire Council. The tribunal hearing ended back in September and I reported on the position at the time, but the written decision itself has still not been issued after more than two months. Apparently some claimants have been in touch with the Glasgow tribunal office and have been told that a decision has been 'reached', yet this information is of no use to the long-suffering  claimants,  if the details of the decision are not released. Because until the decision is written up by the Employment Judge, signed off by the other tribunal members and then published - no one knows what the decision says and how the judgment affects the claimants. Quite why there should be such lengthy delay is not at all clear, so maybe it's time for claimants to start raising their concern directly with the Preside

The Employment Tribunal in Glasgow has been dealing with some outstanding equal pay claims from Housing Wardens, Clerical Assistants and Classroom Assistants - cases where North Lanarkshire Council does not accept that these jobs are of equal value to their chosen male comparators, a Refuse Collector and Gardener 2.  Now I know that readers will be amazed, angry even, to learn that the Council regards these three highly responsible female dominated jobs to be worth so much less than the two traditional, relatively unskilled male jobs - makes no sense whatsoever, if you ask me.  The tribunal has now finished taking evidence and the hearing finally ended on Friday  18 September; a written decision will be issued in due course, but this could take several weeks.  NLC Update (20/08/15) Regular readers will be aware that an Employment Tribunal hearing involving North Lanarkshire Council took place earlier this week on the 17 and 18 of August 2015. Unfortunate

North Lanarkshire Council has managed to upset yet another group of workers, Sheltered Housing Officers, who questioned why their jobs which clearly carry lots of responsibility were not deemed to be of 'equal value' to a Refuse Collector. Now I've known lots of refuse workers in my time, and they do an essential and tough job, in all weathers, often with a great sense of humour. But I would never in my life try to argue that the duties and responsibilities of a  Sheltered Housing Officer failed to match up to those of a Refuse Collector - it just doesn't make sense if you thing about it for any length of time. For example, my mother lived in sheltered housing   for a number of years and while she was independent up to a point, the support of the on-site housing officer or 'warden' was crucial to my mum's safety general well being on a day-to-day basis      Yet under North Lanarkshire Council's controversial job evaluation scheme (JES), Refuse Coll

Robin Lustig averts his gaze from the current meltdown taking place within Labour Party to explain why he supports the proposal to extend the scope of military action against the 'mad dogs' of the Islamic State. Quite the best thing I've read on the subject - serious, thoughtful, measured - and all the more powerful coming from someone who is neither a politician nor a committed idealogue. Read Robin's case here:   http://lustigletter.blogspot.co.uk \ Lustig's Letter TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF THE WORLD Winner of the 2014  Editorial Intelligence  Independent Blogger of the Year award Friday, 27 November 2015 Syria: Why I am a reluctant bomber In the interests of taste and decency, let us look away from the gruesome spectacle of the civil war that has engulfed the Labour party and concentrate instead on the far m