Brass Neck of 2017
I have to admit that my 'Brass Neck of 2017' award was a very close run thing - with Frank McAveety, the GMB union, John Mason MSP and the Scottish Labour Party all in the running.
Until recently, John Mason was a strong favourite for his insulting and ridiculous comments about equal pay claimants in Glasgow 'paying' for their own employment rights to be upheld.
But the MSP for Shettleston has since been rebuked and taken to task by the Leader of Glasgow City Council, Susan Aitken, who has confirmed this is not the view of the SNP led administration.
So the award goes instead to the Scottish Labour Party and a delegate from Cunninghame North CLP, Joanna Baxter, for this completely shameless speech to Labour's annual conference 2017 in Brighton.
Glasgow - Height of Hypocrisy (26/09/17)
How's this for shameful and shameless behaviour from a Scottish delegate to the 2017 Labour Party conference in Brighton.
The truth is that the pay arrangements judged to be 'unfit for purpose' by Scotland's highest civl court, the Court of Session, were put in place by a Labour run council in 2007 with the support of the local Labour supporting unions: the GMB, Unison and Unite.
The new SNP led Glasgow City Council have some way to go in clearing up this mess and if you ask me, they should not have sought leave to appeal the unanimous Court of Session decision because the council's WPBR pay arrangements are indefensible.
But the old-fashioned Labour and trade union left has been 'part of the problem' over equal pay for years and it's the absolute height of hypocrisy for them to try and lay the blame in Glasgow at the door of the SNP.
Frank's Brass Neck (04/05/17)
Labour's Frank McAveety is the winner of my Glasgow 'equal pay' music competition despite the fact that the outgoing council leader didn't submit a nomination on his own behalf.
But Frank deserves to win in my opinion for having the brass neck to tell the Sunday Herald that "I don't do regrets, no I don't" and for claiming in the Evening Times that 'Labour puts Inequality top of Glasgow election agenda' even though Labour-run Glasgow City Council has been making a horse's ass of equal pay for many years.
Now Frank had an opportunity to put things right before today's local elections came along, but he chose not to, so he and his Labour colleagues deserve to be shown the door if you ask me.
Let's see what happens once the voters have had their say at the polls today.
Frank's prize by the way is a bottle of 'Brasso' which as older readers know is really good for polishing up brass necks.
End of the Affair? (11/04/17)
The Labour leader of Glasgow City Council, Frank McAveety, gave an interview to the Sunday Herald at the weekend in which he looked forward to the local council elections on 4th May 2017.
In response to a question about his colourful career in the Scottish Parliament, Frank responded: “I don’t do regrets, no I don’t,” even though he was sacked twice as a government minister for behaving like a teenage schoolboy.
Frank doesn't have a single word to say about equal pay in his long interview which is something I think he will have cause to regret when the voters go to the polls next month.
Read the full piece in the link below to the Sunday Herald and make up your own mind, but before you do here's a famous number by Edith Piaf to get you in the mood.
The last days of power for Labour in Glasgow ... Frank McAveety doesn't think so
KA. Photo by Kirsty Anderson
By Andrew Whitaker - The Sunday Herald
FRANK McAveety, for now at least, is the most powerful Labour politician in Scotland. But as leader of the nation’s biggest council, Glasgow, he also happens to be top of the SNP’s hit list in May’s local elections.
Nicola Sturgeon’s party is tipped to take one of Scottish Labour’s last bastions of power on May 4, seizing what would be a jewel in the crown for the SNP and representing what for many would be the final nail in the coffin of Scotland’s once-dominant political force.
If the opinion polls are anything like accurate, McAveety will be ousted as council leader in less than a month in what could also precipitate the end of a political career that stretches back to some of Labour’s glory days in Scotland. Sitting in the leaders’ office at Glasgow city chambers, however, McAveety is not giving off the vibes of a politician presiding over the last days or weeks of his party’s decades-long rule of Scotland’s biggest city.
Labour, Glasgow and Equal Pay (28/03/17)
A number of readers been in touch about Frank McAveety's curious failure to take up my invitation to write a piece for the blog site setting out the Glasgow Labour Party's position in relation to equal pay.
"Frank's running scared," said a regular reader from Govan. "And he's right to be ashamed of the Labour Party's track record in Glasgow because they've had 10 full years to sort this mess out."
Another observed scathingly:
"A senior official in Glasgow walks away with a leaving package worth over £450,000 yet the City Council's lowest paid workers are still fighting for their rights to equal pay - what kind of Labour message does that send?"
A third person sent me a headline from the Evening Times which includes the bold claim that 'Labour puts inequality at the top of Glasgow council election' - followed by their own pithy comment:
"You couldn't make this up - this is a Labour council having a laugh at our expense. What a shambles."
Damned right - I couldn't put it better myself!
Labour puts inequality top of Glasgow council election agenda
Which is why if you ask me, that Frank and Glasgow's Labour Group deserve to be thrown out on their ear at the local council elections on 4th May 2017.
GMB and 'Brass Neck of 2017' (22/12/17)
After a period of well deserved silence from the GMB the union has jumped back into the running for 'Brass Neck of 2017' after yesterday's big win in the Court of Session.
Now as regular readers know the GMB wasn't part of this hearing and was never been part of the challenge to Glasgow's 'unfit for purpose' WPBR pay scheme, but this didn't stop the union from shamelessly trying to claim credit in the following report which appeared on BBC Scotland's web site:
"Campaigners won a legal case in August when it was ruled that a pay re-grading scheme may have been less favourable for women workers.
"The Court of Session has refused the council's bid to appeal this judgement.
"GMB Scotland's Rhea Wolfson said: "This decision from the court gives power back to the women of Glasgow."
In fact, the GMB's were so ridiculous they prompted Jonathan Mitchell QC (who acted for the A4ES clients) to respond on Twitter with the following pithy observation:
Very misleading @BBCScotlandNews story today on the Glasgow equal pay saga. In fact @GMBScotOrg boycotted this case;
The other contenders for my 'Brass Neck of 2017' award are Frank McAveety, the Scottish Labour Party and John Mason, the MSP for Glasgow Shettleston.
Glasgow - Insulting and Ridiculous (18/12/17)
I circulated a copy of yesterday's post about John Mason's comments on the fight for equal pay with Glasgow City Council - to all Glasgow MSPs, MPs and local councillors along with the following Twitter message:
"John Mason's suggestion that equal pay claimants in Glasgow should 'pay' for their own rights to be upheld is insulting, ridiculous and a complete non-starter"
I don't think I need to add anything further at this stage, but watch this space for more news because there's a lot going on at the moment.
Glasgow - Breaking News (17/12/17)
A kind reader has just shared this email from John Mason MSP which, if you ask me, is ill-judged, patronising and insulting because of the strange way John qualifies his 'support' for equal pay.
John's suggestion is that the Glasgow claimants who have been cheated and robbed of their rights to equal pay for years should come up with a solution themselves and consider accepting less than they are entitled to given the potential impact on jobs and services.
Thanks for your email.
Yes, I do agree with you that this dispute should be settled as soon as possible.
The problem is how much money it will cost and where that money will come from. Figures up to £500 million have been mentioned and Glasgow does not have that money. Labour should have made cuts to pay for the equal pay.
Do you think the SNP should cut jobs and services in order to pay the equal pay claim? Or should the workers who are entitled to the money take less so their colleagues can keep their jobs?
Happy to hear any ideas you have about where the money should come from.
Sincerely
John Mason
(MSP for Glasgow Shettleston)Now I didn't hear Nicola Sturgeon qualify her support back in October when she said at an SNP conference in Glasgow in October 2017:
"The injustice suffered by low paid women in this city will be put right.
"Equal pay for equal work, denied for too long, will be delivered by the SNP."
Nor have I heard SNP MPs at Westminster say that the pension rights of the 'WASPI' women should be restored so long as they come up with proposals for making cuts in other areas of public spending!
I must check on this point with Ian Blackford, the SNP leader in the House of Commons, and Mhairi Black, the SNP MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire, who has been very vocal in support of the WASPI campaign, but I'll eat my hat is that is the stance being taken by the SNP in Westminster.
And while I agree with John that previous Labour-led administrations in Glasgow have a lot to answer for, if I remember correctly, John was a Glasgow councillor at the time the City Council approved its 'unfit for purpose' WPBR pay arrangements back in 2006/07.
So John trying to 'wash his hands' of the whole affair simply won't do although I'd be happy to sit down and discuss how the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government might help Glasgow City Council find a way out of the huge mess it finds itself in today.
But what do the claimants in Glasgow think of John's email?
Let me know and I'll see if we can find a way of bringing Glasgow's MSPs and MPs together for a constructive discussion with some of the claimants in the New Year.
Glasgow's 'Quiet Bunch' (15/12/17)
Glasgow's MSPs and MPs are proving to be more like 'The Quiet Bunch' than 'The Wild Bunch' when it comes to the fight for equal pay with Scotland's largest local council.
Now I've been keeping all Glasgow politicians - local councillors, MSPs and MPs - up to speed with what's been happening in recent weeks and months, yet there seems to be a strange reluctance to get directly involved.
I certainly expected the politicians to show more interest in what's happening in their own back yard and to speak up on important issues such as the prospect of the City Council trying to overturn a unanimous judgment from Scotland's highest civil court, the Court of Session.
Maybe they're all too busy doing their Christmas shopping, but whatever the reason I'm sure this issue is going to return with a real vengeance in the New Year.
Glasgow MSPs and MPs (08//11/17)
I sent a copy of yesterday's post on 'The Fight for Equal Pay' to all Glasgow MSPs and MPs along with the following Twitter message:
"Equal pay claimants demand respect from Glasgow City Council after years of being treated as second-class citizens"
So far at least, I've heard nothing back - not a 'Like', 'Retweet', message of support or request for further information.
Which strikes me as a bit odd because Glasgow's MSPs and MPs have strong views on just about every issue under the sun, if their Twitter feeds are anything to go by.
And you would think that Glasgow's politicians would be taking a very keen interest in such a long running struggle which is taking place right under their noses.
In any event, it's important that equal pay claimants keep demanding support from their local MSPs and MPs because we're not out of the woods yet - not by a long chalk.
MSPs and MPs have a big role to play in the weeks ahead as the City Council decides whether to pursue an appeal to the UK Supreme Court and over the outstanding issue of coming clean over its WPBR pay arrangements.
Surely it's not too much to ask Glasgow's politicians to get behind their local constituents on the question of openness, transparency and equal pay?
The Fight for Equal Pay in Glasgow (08/11/17)
Now while things may changed overnight, I think it's really quite outrageous that claimants are in the position of having to fight Glasgow City Council every inch of the way towards a fair and just resolution of their equal pay claims.
The claimants deserve an awful lot better - if you ask me, they deserve senior officials who treat the claimants with respect by engaging positively with their representatives and cooperating fully on issues like the provision of pay information.
The past few days been an emotional rollercoaster for claimants who have been treated abominably for years, yet this could have been easily avoided with a bit of common sense and what used to pass for native intelligence in Scottish local government.
Nonetheless if we do face a similar situation again, the task of mobilising thousands of equal pay claimants across Glasgow may well be back on the cards - even though the dog didn't actually have to bark this time around.
