NLC Update (29/11/15)
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 which would finally decide whether the pay of the women should be on a par with the pay of the men.
A 'no brainer' if you ask me and without talking down the work done by Council refuse collectors, there's no way I can see that a further tribunal will not agree that Clerical Workers and Sheltered Housing Wardens have not been shabbily treated by their employer - a big Labour-run council, of course.
I plan to share this news with local MPs and MSPs in North Lanarkshire who will no doubt be interested to learn of yet another defeat for the Council and its intransigence in pursuing this nonsense to yet another tribunal hearing, at considerable public expense.
No doubt the A4ES claimants are fed up to the back teeth with the Council's behaviour, but the task now is to see this through to the end and the claimants can help by raising these issues with their local MPs and MSPs.
I will publish all the relevant contact details on the blog site in the next days and in the meantime here are some posts from the blog site archive explaining the background to this latest North Lanarkshire equal pay debacle.
