Glasgow - Equal Pay Update
Glasgow's chief executive, Annemarie O'Donnell, sent an email to staff following the Court of Session's bombshell decision which drives a 'coach and horses' through the City Council's job evaluation scheme (JES) and WPBR pay arrangements.
Note to staff from Annemarie O’Donnell
You may have read by now that the court of session has today issued a ruling relating to the ongoing employment tribunal case about equal pay.
This is a very complex ruling, relating to a very complex case which applies to our pay and grading structure.
The court was considering whether our pay and grading scheme is valid, in terms of the law relating to equal pay. While the court did not find that our scheme is discriminatory, it did find that we have not provided enough evidence that it is not discriminatory, overturning previous rulings from the Employment Tribunal and the Employment Appeals Tribunal.
The court also referred a number of current equal pay claims back to the Employment Tribunal for consideration.
As you might imagine, it will take some time to work through the implications of this and decide our next steps.
I expect that media reporting may make estimates of the potential cost to the council of this ruling. It is far too early to say what the financial implications of this might be.
Annemarie
Now I'm pleased to hear that Glasgow will be taking some time to work through the implications of the Court of Session decision because it is self-evident that the City Council's defence strategy has blown up in its face.
As someone who attended the Court of Session I can honestly say it's difficult to understate the extent of the 'kicking' the City Council's case received at the hands of the A4ES legal team and the three senior judges who heard the appeal.
If you ask me, one of the first things the new Council leadership ought to review is the advice offered to the 'decision makers' by senior officials - what options were put on the table and what were the risks associated with one course of action over another?
For example, at some point the City Council clearly decided to try and 'tough things out' via the courts, as opposed to seeking a negotiated settlement which A4ES offered the previous Labour administration back in August 2016.
As it turns out the City Council 'bet the house' on winning at the Court of Session, but lost hands down which raises some important questions about whether the Council's tail is wagging the dog.
Because Glasgow does seems to be mirroring the strategy adopted in North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire Councils, for a while at least, and as everyone knows all that succeeded in doing was ratcheting up the eventual settlement costs.
'Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results' is a sign of insanity, said Albert Einstein.
And if you ask me Glasgow's equal pay problems are only going to be resolved once the City Council starts thinking and behaving differently, as far as a future settlement of the outstanding cases is concerned.
Stefan Cross tells it straight in this agenda piece for The Herald about the long fight for equal pay in Glasgow City Council.
In effect, Glasgow 'bet the house' but lost hands down, even though the City Council had the opportunity to settle these issues amicably, by negotiation, a long time ago.
Yet for some strange reason a succession of Labour-led councils relied on very poor advice from senior officials and legal advisers, instead of facing up to their obligations over equal pay.
Many of those responsible have now left the council, through retirement or other generous terms, but the big challenge for the new SNP led administration is to accept that the Council is in a big hole of its own making - and 'stop digging'.
So maybe it's time that some of the City Council's senior officials and legal advisers were shown the door?
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15482341.Will_Glasgow_drop_fight_against_equal_pay_/
Will Glasgow drop fight against equal pay?
As someone who attended the Court of Session I can honestly say it's difficult to understate the extent of the 'kicking' the City Council's case received at the hands of the A4ES legal team and the three senior judges who heard the appeal.
If you ask me, one of the first things the new Council leadership ought to review is the advice offered to the 'decision makers' by senior officials - what options were put on the table and what were the risks associated with one course of action over another?
For example, at some point the City Council clearly decided to try and 'tough things out' via the courts, as opposed to seeking a negotiated settlement which A4ES offered the previous Labour administration back in August 2016.
As it turns out the City Council 'bet the house' on winning at the Court of Session, but lost hands down which raises some important questions about whether the Council's tail is wagging the dog.
Because Glasgow does seems to be mirroring the strategy adopted in North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire Councils, for a while at least, and as everyone knows all that succeeded in doing was ratcheting up the eventual settlement costs.
'Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results' is a sign of insanity, said Albert Einstein.
And if you ask me Glasgow's equal pay problems are only going to be resolved once the City Council starts thinking and behaving differently, as far as a future settlement of the outstanding cases is concerned.
Glasgow - Stop Digging! (19/08/17)
Stefan Cross tells it straight in this agenda piece for The Herald about the long fight for equal pay in Glasgow City Council.
In effect, Glasgow 'bet the house' but lost hands down, even though the City Council had the opportunity to settle these issues amicably, by negotiation, a long time ago.
Yet for some strange reason a succession of Labour-led councils relied on very poor advice from senior officials and legal advisers, instead of facing up to their obligations over equal pay.
Many of those responsible have now left the council, through retirement or other generous terms, but the big challenge for the new SNP led administration is to accept that the Council is in a big hole of its own making - and 'stop digging'.
So maybe it's time that some of the City Council's senior officials and legal advisers were shown the door?
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15482341.Will_Glasgow_drop_fight_against_equal_pay_/
Will Glasgow drop fight against equal pay?
By Stefan Cross QC - The Herald
Stefan Cross QC
Every political party and every politician will tell you that they believe in the principle of equal pay for men and women.
But when you challenge that principle in practice it becomes a different story. Protecting the mens’ wages comes first, saving money comes second and the rights of the women come a distant last.
We are about to find out if that charge still sticks as today’s Court of Session ruling means that GCC faces a bill that could run into hundreds of millions of pounds purely because they have for over a decade set their face against resolving these issues with us on an amicable basis.
To understand how we got into this mess you have to go back over 30 years. In the 1980s all local councils agreed a new job evaluation scheme (JES) for manual workers covering all jobs done mainly by men such as refuse, gardening and road workers and all mainly female jobs such as catering, cleaning and caring.
This meant a home carer was graded the same as the driver of a refuse lorry. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with this scoring, what matters is that all the employers and the unions did so.
This meant that legally these two jobs should have been paid the same. By 2005 the nationally agreed rate for the job was about £11,000 and that what the women were paid, but because of automatic bonuses the men were getting paid anything up to £21,000.
The council now agrees that this was wrong and the women were therefore entitled to be paid the same £21,000. Did they? Err no.
Instead the council terminated the old pay arrangement and imposed a new pay structure.
Now this in itself was not unusual, indeed there was a nationally agreed scheme agreed with the unions to enable this to be put in place. But Glasgow City Council refused to follow the national agreement.
It decided to go it alone and create its own JES scheme. On top of that the council promised the men that they would protect their old earnings but refused to give the same protection to the women.
What did this mean in practice? It meant that instead of being paid the same as a man doing a job which has been of equal value for 20 years the council downgraded the women and gave them new salary still much less than the men.
Net result was that women had an effective pay cut of over £5,000. To rub salt into the wounds they also took away the womens’ right to overtime pay and other enhancements. Guess who kept those rights? Yes the former bonus earning men. This is supposed to be an equal opportunities employer!
We have challenged all these decisions. At the same time we urged the council to resolve these cases by agreement. They refused instead gambling that their lawyers advice was better than ours. They have now lost that bet.
The Court of Session in two decisions this year held, first, that the women were entitled to the same protection as the men but even more importantly that the council had failed to prove that its JES scheme was valid under the Equal Pay Act, the now nearly half century old legislation designed to make sure men and women’s labour is valued equally, and not tainted with discrimination.
Stefan Cross QC
Every political party and every politician will tell you that they believe in the principle of equal pay for men and women.
But when you challenge that principle in practice it becomes a different story. Protecting the mens’ wages comes first, saving money comes second and the rights of the women come a distant last.
We are about to find out if that charge still sticks as today’s Court of Session ruling means that GCC faces a bill that could run into hundreds of millions of pounds purely because they have for over a decade set their face against resolving these issues with us on an amicable basis.
To understand how we got into this mess you have to go back over 30 years. In the 1980s all local councils agreed a new job evaluation scheme (JES) for manual workers covering all jobs done mainly by men such as refuse, gardening and road workers and all mainly female jobs such as catering, cleaning and caring.
This meant a home carer was graded the same as the driver of a refuse lorry. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with this scoring, what matters is that all the employers and the unions did so.
This meant that legally these two jobs should have been paid the same. By 2005 the nationally agreed rate for the job was about £11,000 and that what the women were paid, but because of automatic bonuses the men were getting paid anything up to £21,000.
The council now agrees that this was wrong and the women were therefore entitled to be paid the same £21,000. Did they? Err no.
Instead the council terminated the old pay arrangement and imposed a new pay structure.
Now this in itself was not unusual, indeed there was a nationally agreed scheme agreed with the unions to enable this to be put in place. But Glasgow City Council refused to follow the national agreement.
It decided to go it alone and create its own JES scheme. On top of that the council promised the men that they would protect their old earnings but refused to give the same protection to the women.
What did this mean in practice? It meant that instead of being paid the same as a man doing a job which has been of equal value for 20 years the council downgraded the women and gave them new salary still much less than the men.
Net result was that women had an effective pay cut of over £5,000. To rub salt into the wounds they also took away the womens’ right to overtime pay and other enhancements. Guess who kept those rights? Yes the former bonus earning men. This is supposed to be an equal opportunities employer!
We have challenged all these decisions. At the same time we urged the council to resolve these cases by agreement. They refused instead gambling that their lawyers advice was better than ours. They have now lost that bet.
The Court of Session in two decisions this year held, first, that the women were entitled to the same protection as the men but even more importantly that the council had failed to prove that its JES scheme was valid under the Equal Pay Act, the now nearly half century old legislation designed to make sure men and women’s labour is valued equally, and not tainted with discrimination.
The council will either have to go back to the drawing board or let the tribunal do it for them. In the meantime the women have been paid anything up to £6000 a year less than men doing jobs which were of equal value. So will the council now agree to pay these women equally or will they find another excuse? We’ll wait and see.
