Mark Irvine - Blogger, Campaigner, Organiser

via GIPHY Merry Christmas to all regular readers of my blog and everyone involved in the fight for equal pay in Glasgow City Council. I hope 2019 is the year when all your hopes and dreams come true! I'm taking a break from the blog over the festive season, but I take my hat off to the thousands of people who have to work over the holidays - instead of being able to enjoy Christmas and New Year with their friends and families. Glasgow's Home Carers, for example, are out there in this freezing fog and it's incredible to think we are now going into the 13th year of their long fight for equal pay. See you all again in the   New Year - safe and well, I hope.  

Feliz Navidad is definitely my favourite Christmas song. Now I love 'Fairytale of New York' and the ridiculously catchy tunes of Slade and Roy Wood, but there's something wonderfully human about Robert Earl Keene's everyday tale of spending Christmas with a chaotic family.        

Now I'm not sure if this is in keeping with the true 'Spirit of Christmas', but it's funny all the same!   

Here's a classic festive joke - a great, quick-witted Tweet from Eddie Izzard responding to Gerry Adams.  

Here's a friendly Twitter exchange I've been having about the fight for equal pay in Glasgow   City Council. Now I imagine KC must be an SNP member, or supporter at least, which I have to say is neither here nor there to me because Glasgow's equal pay dispute is not about party politics.  As regular readers know, I've been a big critic of previous Labour-run councils and I have also criticised the present SNP-led council, for example over its unsuccessful attempt (in December 2017) to overturn the Court of Session's 'unfit for purpose' judgment on Glasgow's WPBR pay scheme.  But there's no need to be falling out with people on Facebook and Twitter or calling them nasty names - it's perfectly possible have a civilised discussion without becoming  obnoxious or personal. I always try to be polite in these exchanges because I'm more interested in getting a point across than having a fight - although if people are terribly rude, ignorant...

A timely reminder from Stefan Cross that what people say on social media can indeed come back to haunt them. So don't be saying wild, malicious or defamatory things - you Twitter and Facebook users out there - especially as you could be making a very expensive mistake.  Another object lesson in the dangers of Twitter. https://t.co/WwcV28VVFt — Stefan Cross QC (@StefanCross1) December 19, 2018   Facebook Friends (06/12/18) More Facebook jokes!   Get Out Of My Facebook! (05/12/18) Campaigning on social media can be challenging at times which means a good sense of humour is essential.    

The Sunday Herald reports on what Glasgow City Council is up to behind the scenes to meet the cost of its equal pay bill. What's not clear though is the amount Glasgow is seeking to raise - which is the key to resolving this long-running dispute. So let's see what happens in the New Year because, as things stand, the Council has not come close to meeting the demand for a just settlement based on the pay and pensions the Claimants have lost after working for 12 years under the 'unfit for purpose' WPBR pay scheme.   https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17316635.revealed-glasgow-councils-plan-to-pay-its-500m-equal-pay-bill/? Revealed: Glasgow council's plan to meet its £500m equal pay bill By Paul Hutcheon  - The Sunday Herald The City Chambers GLASGOW city council is considering paying off part of its huge equal pay bill by mortgaging some of the city’s showpiece sports and culture facilities, it can be revealed. Under the plan, a local authority arms-...

Lots of readers have sent me copies of their response letters from Susan Aitken regarding the long-awaited,  follow-up meeting the Council Leader promised to hold with Glasgow's equal pay claimants.    The contents all seem the same to me, so I assume they are a 'standard letter' from the Leader's office. In any event, I suspect people will be disappointed at the Council Leader's reluctance to report back directly to the  claimants which Susan agreed to herself - at a previous meeting in the Dixon Halls more than a year ago, way back in 2017.   But now the Leader's office is claiming some   'confusion' over dates, times and venues as the problem which is a load of old baloney if you ask me - because previous meetings have always been held at 2pm and if there was a real issue over a suitable venue, I'm sure that the Dixon Halls is still generally available. The real point is that the Council Leader has an office and st...

So it seems that some folks in the City Council would like to put Stefan Cross on the 'naughty step' for keeping Glasgow's equal pay Claimants informed about what has been happening during marathon settlement talks which have been dragging on for almost 12 months now.   Just imagine what things would look like if the Council got its way - virtual 'radio silence' from December 2017 onwards with thousands of claimants being kept in the dark, unless a joint statement had been issued, subject to agreement with Council officials and elected politicians, of course. I wonder how the SNP Group would have reacted, if a previous Labour-run council made a similar proposal?  The reality is that Stefan's regular updates have ensured that the Claimants know what's going on without breaking the confidentiality of the negotiating process which really got underway in earnest only six weeks ago or so, of course. For months the Council moved at the speed of a glacier and t...

Here's an interesting article from the Evening Times which reports that two senior council officials in Glasgow are to face disciplinary action over their expenses claims. I wrote about this at the time and I'm astonished that the investigation has been allowed to drag on for all these months.  So when I get a minute I'll republish the relevant posts because they're a real eye-opener.        https://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/17312598.two-council-bosses-face-disciplinary-action-over-expenses-probe/? Two council bosses face disciplinary action over expenses probe By Stewart Paterson @PatersonHT  - Evening Times  21/12/18 TWO senior council bosses face further action after an expenses investigation reached its closing stages. Richard Brown, executive director of Development and Regeneration Services, and Tom Turley, assistant director, were under investigation by the city council for alleged breaches of expenses rules. ...