Glasgow's Pay Arrangements

I have been delving into Glasgow's post WPBR pay arrangements and came across a document that goes into some details about the Employee Development Commitment ((EDC) a scheme that set out to maintain the higher pay of the male dominated former bonus earning groups - compared to their female colleagues whose jobs were clearly of 'equal value' to the men.

Here's an extract of one document which explains how the EDC operated, but the important point to remember is that pay was not 'equalised' before the scheme was introduced and so the jobs of low paid women were not treated in the same way as their male colleagues. 

"A series of interventions have been commissioned by the Council from Hays to support the pragmatic implementation of the EDC.

"The EDC is:

“The Council is committed to assisting all employees with Protected Status, who are in a loss of earnings position following the implementation of the Workforce Pay and Benefits Review to develop the skills that will provide them with the opportunity to move to a higher level post, thus allowing maintenance of their earnings in the long-term.

"This commitment will involve every employee with Protected Status being offered the following: -

"1 An Individual and/or group assessment of their current skills utilising methodologies to suit the varying learning styles.

"2 An individual Job/Career Planning meeting that will: - 

• Provide information on relevant and appropriate Jobs (Role Profiles) and pathways/maps through the Councils Job Family Structure 
• Consider and identify in conjunction with the employee realistic opportunities and options that are likely to be available within the protection timeframe taking account of individual’ salary/pay and skills 
• Identify any skills/training gap i.e. what the employee would need to do to progress to the identified jobs/Job Families. 

"3 Development of an Individual and/or Group Development Plans, where appropriate, which may include a variety of arrangements to suit the individuals/groups needs e.g.-

• Practical on-the-job methods 
• Training Centre and/or distance learning based development 
• Further Education/Formal Training courses and or qualifications 
• Coaching
• Shadowing and/or secondment opportunities 

"4 Ongoing monitoring of progress including support, guidance and review of Individual/Group Plans to ensure continued relevance and amendment as required.

"5 Ongoing information re job opportunities/vacancies and support during the recruitment and selection process.”

The document goes on to describe four different approaches to 'delivering the pay shortfall'

1. Earnings related to compensation for working circumstances. This payment is individual job related and usually associated with particular job families. It may be that the individual under consideration may already be in that family. The compensation offered through this approach is limited to sums of £480 progressively to £1200 for extreme circumstances. 
2. Earnings related to time disruption. This payment is related to individual job agreements, often within a larger group/team and offers some significant pay enhancements of between £500 and £5243. 
3. Promotion from the current allocation of role to a higher role. The assimilation rules for protected employees places them at the “proven” point. The opportunity then is to be promoted to grades above the allocated level and therefore enjoy the higher pay for that grade. This approach delivers substantial monies as the ‘promotion’ leads to pay at the entry level and after two years further service, at the proven level. 
4. Explicit payment justified by ‘market forces’. This approach has not been formalised by the WPBR. It is a difficult approach to progress because of the potential scrutiny of the supporting data and the requirement to justify the ‘whole of the difference’ between the standard pay of a grade and the proposed pay for a specific job."

All of these 'special measures' are aimed at treating former bonus earning male jobs more favourably than their female colleagues who remained stuck at the bottom of the council's pay ladder.

The priority of both the City Council and the trade unions was to preserve the higher pay of the men - instead of increasing the pay of women workers to the same level where their jobs were of equal value.

  

Glasgow and Equal Pay (22/04/17)

Here is a table I've put together summarising the pay data I received from Glasgow City Council in response to a series of FoI requests.

The important points to note are the level of earnings enjoyed by these male dominated, former bonus earning jobs - both before and after the introduction of the WPBR.

Back in 2005/06 the pay rate of a Home Carer was around £6.00 per hour even though Home Carers had a far higher grading (MW5) than most of the following council jobs:

Gardener 1 (MW1)
Gardener 4 (MW4)
Refuse Collector (MW2)
Gravedigger (MW3)
Road Worker (MW5)

As I've explained on the blog previously, all male dominated, former bonus earning jobs that were 'red circled' as a result of the WPBR were given a guarantee that their earnings would be maintained going forward - and so it proved.

But the earnings of women workers were not increased to the same level as their male comparators prior to the WPBR, even though various women's jobs including the Home Carers were at least of 'equal value' to the men.

And that principle of 'equal treatment' is what the Court of Session in Edinburgh is going to be considering next week.

  

Table 1

Glasgow CC	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
Gardener 1 (MW1)
Annual Earnings	£17,466.28	£17,448.46	No Comparator	£11,972.40	No Comparator	No Comparator
Basic Salary	£10,672.00	£10,939.00	N/a	£13,728.00	N/a	N/a
Difference	£6,794.28	£6,509.46		-£1,755.60
Hourly Rate	£9.60	£9.59		£6.58
Gardener 4 (MW4)
Annual Earnings	£26,738.53	£19,122.04	£21,423.50	£21,740.19	£27,890.93	£21,964.60
Basic Salary	£11,770.00	£12,064.00	£18,327.00	£18,877.00	£19,349.00	£19,475.00
Difference	£14,968.53	£7,058.04	£3,096.50	£2,863.19	£8,541.93	£2,489.60
Hourly Rate	£14.69	£10.51	£11.77	£11.95	£15.32	£12.07
Refuse Collector (MW2)
Annual Earnings	£22,966.41	£19,411.28	£23,825.29	£28,758.52	£21,904.31	£24,034.67
Basic Salary	£11,032.00	£11,308.00	£14,238.00	£14,665.00	£13,341.00	£13,817.00
Difference	£11,934.41	£8,103.28	£9,587.40	£14,093.52	£8,563.31	£10,217.67
Hourly Rate	£12.61	£10.66	£13.09	£15.80	£12.36	£13.21
Grave Digger (MW3)
Annual Earnings	£21,910.97	£15,915.44	£22,845.40	£22,032.00	£23,006.00	£23,349.48
Basic Salary	£11,409.00	£11,695.00	£11,986.00	£14,665.00	£16,925.00	£17,035.00
Difference	£10,501.97	£4,220.44	£10,859.40	£7,367.00	£6,081.00	£6,314.48
Hourly Rate	£12.04	£8.74	£12.55	£12.11	£12.64	£12.83
Road Worker (MW5)
Annual Earnings	£44,556.65	£24,724.46	£25,051.74	£24,253.00	No Comparator	No Comparator
Basic Salary	£11,787.00	£12,439.00	£20,035.00	£22,255.00	N/a	N/a
Difference	£32,769.65	£12,285.46	£5,016.74	£1,988.00	N/a	N/a
Hourly Rate	£24.48	£13.58	£13.76	£13.33