Another Fine Mess (19/01/16)

GMB members in North Lanarkshire are still not further forward with their equal pay claims even though all of the other claimants settled their long-running dispute with the Council almost a year ago.

The problem stems from the fact that instead of following Action 4 Equality Scotland's lead (which both Unison and Unite had the sense to do), the GMB decided to restrict the equal pay claims of its members in North Lanarkshire to only three years.

The latest piece of bad news is that an Employment Tribunal hearing scheduled for 12 January 2016 was cancelled suddenly and the GMB's attempts to remedy this terrible mess (of its own creation) has been abandoned for another eight weeks.

Now if I were a member of the GMB in North Lanarkshire I would be throughly fed up at having paid my union fees loyally for years, only to be treated as if my head 'buttoned up the back' which is what's happening at the moment, if you ask me.

Because the union is trying to avoid taking responsibility for its own shortcomings by blaming others including North Lanarkshire Council and its previously legal advisers (Digby Brown) who have now been replaced by a new set of lawyers.

I attended a GMB members' meeting a few months ago and heard with my own ears, a senior GMB official say that the union took a national policy decision to restrict GMB equal pay claims to only three years.

In which case how can anyone other than the union be responsible for the position that GMB members in North Lanarkshire find themselves in today?

As regular readers know, the GMB is able and willing to throw huge sums of money at the Labour Party in political donations, yet when something has gone so badly wrong in North Lanarkshire hundreds of low paid members are being left struggling for answers.

In my view, the solution is for the GMB to say that it will compensate these members for any loss they suffer, as a result of the union's incompetence or negligence.

More to follow soon.