Start Your Engines

Ten years after North Lanarkshire Council said it had put the whole issue of equal pay to bed, the Labour-led administration still has serious and unresolved issues with the following groups of staff:

1. Sheltered Housing Wardens, Clerical Workers and Classroom Assistants 
2. GMB members whose own union let them down, but who also lost out because of the discriminatory pay arrangements operated by NLC for many years
3. Home Carers and others whose jobs North Lanarkshire Council agreed to review and re-assess as part of the 2015 settlement of ongoing equal pay claims  

In the case of the first group, the Council refuses to accept that the women's jobs are of equal value to their male comparators. 

The second group are still fighting for justice in the Employment Tribunals, but are badly hampered by the inept behaviour of their own trade union, the GMB.

The third group has been starved of information about the review process which has been underway for several months; the timetable for completing this crucial task (December 2015) has come and gone, without a word of explanation or apology.

So before too long everyone may end up back in the Employment Tribunals and if so, the responsibility will lie with the 'top brass' at North Lanarkshire Council who have been making a dog's dinner of equal pay for the past decade and more.

Broadly speaking the same group of Labour politicians and senior council officials have been running the place for years and the best thing that could happen in would be to have a thorough clear-out all this 'deadwood' and hold an independent inquiry into North Lanarkshire's handling of equal pay.

The next set of local council elections in May 2017 will provide the voters with just such an opportunity, but before then there are elections to the Scottish Parliament in May 2016 which will couldn't have come at a better time for raising the political temperature by placing the sitting Labour Party MSPs on the spot.

All of which will concentrate minds wonderfully within the council, I suspect, as old Labour friends and allies are forced to take a stand - or pay the consequences with the electorate.

I plan to do my bit to move things along and will be hold a series of local meetings in the weeks ahead to explain what's at stake and how workers from these various staff groups can help win their fight for equal pay. 

If you would like to arrange a meeting just drop me an email (in confidence of course) at the following address: markirvine@compuserve.com