North Lanarkshire Update

A number regular readers from North Lanarkshire have been in touch to say that the word doing the rounds is that the Council 'review exercise' has resulted in a victory for the Home Carers.

Now this wouldn't surprise me in the least, I have to say, because I think any reasonable person would agree that the Home Carers jobs were poorly treated during the job evaluation exercise that NLC carried out previously in 2006/07.

But I'm not able to confirm the position at this stage because the Council has still to officially release the results of the review which was due to have been completed by the end of December 2015.

So fingers crossed and let's hope that North Lanarkshire has finally come to its senses. 

NLC Update (17/03/16)

A kind reader has passed on an 'update' from Unison regarding the review of various jobs agreed as part of the 2015 equal pay settlement with North Lanarkshire Council.

"OB RE-EVALUATION PROJECT UPDATE

"The job re-evaluation for the posts involved in the equal pay litigation is still to be concluded. At this stage all job holders have been interviewed and the team has produced a generic job overview for each post. The overviews were then sent to job holders and managers for sign off or further discussion where they have disagreed with a part of the overview. This process has been time consuming, but UNISON thinks its vital that the new job overviews are as accurate as possible.

"We know that this had been a frustrating time for members, but everyone involved in the process is determined that re-evaluation is done properly.

"We'll keep you updated."

Now as regular readers know, this review was supposed to have been completed months ago, by the end of December 2015.

But not only has another important deadline been missed again by NLC, the review has been shrouded in secrecy, instead being handled in an open and transparent manner which is what a professional Job Evaluation process should be all about.

So the wider workforce has not seen any new job descriptions - not just those of the claimant groups, but the job descriptions of various traditional male jobs which have been the source of thousands of equal pay challenges over the past 11 years.

The $64,000 dollar question being: : "How can an employee (Home Carer, for example) tell if their job is being assessed fairly and consistently, unless they are also able to see how male comparator jobs are treated (council refuse workers, gardeners and so on?"

I wrote about the North Lanarkshire's last job evaluation exercise way back in 2007 and all of my criticisms about the NLC JES were completely vindicated at the long-running Glasgow Employment Tribunal, albeit several years later.

I am re-publishing these posts from the blog site archive which readers in NLC may find interesting.  

North Lanarkshire Update (07/03/16)

I've had lots of enquiries form readers in North Lanarkshire about the Council's review of jobs which was supposed to have been completed by the end of December 2015.

Now the Council has missed yet another deadline of major importance to the workforce, not for the first time course, but what people want to know is whether or not the outcome of this review will trigger a further equal pay settlement.

Well it depends on what the outcome is, but so far the Council has kept everyone in the dark and so have NLC's trade unions, I have to say.

Is it only me or are other readers of the blog site beginning to notice a rather familiar pattern here?

The whole business of a further settlement depends on whether the present grades of female dominated jobs (Home Carers, for example) goes up after the review exercise is completed which is what most fair minded people expect, I would say.

The other way in which Home Carers and others could benefit is if the comparative grades of various male dominated jobs (Refuse Workers and Gardeners, for example) go down - because the Council would continue to protect the higher pay of these male jobs.

If that were to happen, the comparative female jobs would be entitled to the same higher or 'protected' rate of pay as the male jobs.

In any event I think it would be wishful thinking of the highest order to believe that this will all just fall into place, as if the Good Fairy visited Motherwell and told the Council's top brass to get their act together.

Up till now the process has been 'led' by the senior Council management and the trade unions which is exactly what happened last time round in 2006/07 - and perhaps explains why the whole exercise is still shrouded in secrecy.

I'm told that when NLC employees ask their trade unions for an update or progress report, that they are just fobbed off which is a very strange way to behave because JES is intended  to be an open and transparent process and it certainly was when I acted as Unison's Head of Local Government and chief negotiator in Scotland.  

So if I were an employee in North Lanarkshire Council and/or a trade union member, I would start rocking the boat big time and demand to know just what the hell is going on.

A4ES will review the outcome on behalf of its 3,300 clients in North Lanarkshire and if the Council has been up to its old tricks again, then the whole thing could end up back in the Employment Tribunals.

In other words there's an awful lot at stake.

Cockamamy Council (19/02/16)

Lots of readers from North Lanarkshire have been in touch to ask how they can help support the campaign to knock some much needed sense into this cockamamy, Labour-run Council.

Now I don't have all the answers (who does), but a key aim for me would be to bring about a genuine culture of openness and transparency which has been absent for the past 20 years, ever since North Lanarkshire Council (NLC) was created, in fact, back in 1996.  

For example, how can the NLC workforce have any confidence in pay arrangements from a Job Evaluation Scheme (JES) which were cooked-up behind closed doors? 

For all people know the same thing could be happening again with the latest 'review' of jobs (including Home Carers posts) which was forced on the Council after its case collapsed at the long-running Employment Tribunal in Glasgow.

So what is needed, if you ask me, is a fierce determination to turn the tide - involving lots of people so that 'many hands make light work' of a big challenge.

The Scottish Parliament elections in May present an ideal opportunity to turn the heat up on North Lanarkshire's Labour-run administration and its dwindling number of supporters in the local community.

In May 2015 voters in North Lanarkshire sent every Labour Westminster MP packing and if I had my way, a key question for every candidate in the looming Scottish Parliament elections would be:

"Do you support an independent inquiry into North Lanarkshire Council's handling of equal pay?" 

Because that really would set the cat amongst the pigeons by shining a light on the behaviour of the Council's political leadership and its senior officials over the years.

After all 'daylight is the best disinfectant', as they say.