Glasgow and Pay Discrimination

Here's an exchange of emails I had recently with a councillor from Glasgow City Council's Labour Group, Soryia Siddique. 

Now I'm all in favour of dialogue and discussion and I would be quite happy to meet with Soryia for a further discussion - I'm sure that some of Glasgow's equal pay claimants would be pleased to do so as well.

But the fact of the matter is that the Labour leadership of the City Council showed no interest in dialogue for years.

Instead, Labour fought tooth and nail to defend Glasgow's 'unfit for purpose' WPBR pay scheme which is why I observe that some councillors in Glasgow would struggle to acknowledge blatant pay discrimination, if it jumped up and bit them on the arse.

  

Dear Soryia

The Fight for Equal Pay in Glasgow

Many thanks for your email and comments about Glasgow and equal pay.

I'm afraid I don't recognise your description of the Labour Party in Glasgow City Council because my personal experience is that previous Labour administrations fought tooth and nail to defend the council's WPBR pay scheme for 10 full years.

The WPBR has now been condemned as 'unfit for purpose' by Scotland's highest civil court, the Court of Session, but A4ES has been highlighting its deficiencies and many problems ever since it was introduced. 

For example, one of its ridiculous and completely invented 'rules' is that only employees working 37 hours per week or more receive a £1,000 a year NSWP payment which conveniently excludes virtually all female workers in Glasgow City Council.

Now the scheme was deliberately designed in this way, i.e. to favour traditional male jobs over female dominated jobs, and there are many other examples I can share with you if you are genuinely interested in finding out more.

To be perfectly frank with you it should not have taken the Court of Session to 'call time' on the WPBR pay scheme - the city's councillors and senior officials should have done so a long time ago, but they were not listening to A4ES or the council's largely female workforce.

I met with the Labour leader of the City Council, Frank McAveety, in the summer of 2016 and tried to move these issues forward, but there was no willingness on Frank's part to engage with A4ES or listen to our concerns about the WPBR which was, of course, introduced by a previous Labour council in 2007.

If you ask me, some councillors in Glasgow would struggle to acknowledge blatant pay discrimination if it jumped up and bit them on the arse. 

If you would like to discuss these issues over a coffee, or perhaps meet with some of Glasgow's equal pay claimants, I would be more than happy to oblige.

A4ES represents a big majority of Glasgow's equal pay claimants, with 7,500 clients out of the total number of claims (11,000) registered, so far, with the Employment Tribunals.  

Kind regards

Mark Irvine

-----Original Message-----
From: Siddique, Soryia (Councillor) (Councillor) 
To: markirvine 
Sent: Thu, Jan 18, 2018 11:24 am
Subject: GLASGOW PAY JUSTICE CAMPAIGN

Hello Mr Irvine

Thank you for your recent comments regarding the Glasgow Pay Justice Campaign.

The issue of equal pay is a long-standing issue which the Council has been making efforts to address. In the last decade, the Labour administration had allocated substantial additional amounts to payroll to address those issues, as well as settling claims in the amount of £53.8m. However, we recognise that there are still outstanding claims, and we agree that there should be one table for negotiation. We expect all main stakeholders to be represented at that table, and that the Council will engage positively in those discussions.

Labour in Glasgow has led the way in protecting working conditions, and improving them. Those measures included ensuring that there were no compulsory redundancies across the Council and the introduction of the Glasgow Living Wage. Glasgow was the first council in Scotland to make that commitment, and ensures that employees’ right across the Council family are earning enough to make ends meet. These were commitments made in spite of £377million worth of cuts from the Scottish Government.

Labour have argued, and will continue to argue, for a fairer settlement from the Scottish Government. At the last Council meeting, we put forward a motion calling for that fairer deal. However, it was defeated by the current SNP administration. In these tough conditions for local government budgets, our priority must be on protecting those front line services from further cuts and campaigning to ensure that the Scottish Government gives our City the resources it needs to fulfil our City’s true potential.

Kind regards

Bailie Dr Soryia Siddique

Ward 8 – Southside Central

Glasgow City Council

City Chambers

Glasgow G2  1DU

  

Labour Has a Real Cheek! (20/01/18)

I didn't catch the Scottish Labour Party broadcast the other night in which Richard Leonard spoke about his enthusiastic support for equal pay.

But a reader drew the broadcast to my attention and we had the following email exchange.

Hi Mark

Have you seen Richard Leonard’s Labour Party Broadcast tonight - it’s as though Labour are claiming credit - they have always fought for Equal Pay - I’m gobsmacked!

L


Hi L

I'm afraid to say the Scottish Labour Party is totally without shame!

Mark


Absolutely!

L

My Brass neck of 2017 Award did of course go to the Scottish Labour Party for an unbelievably shameless speech by a Scottish delegate to the UK Labour conference in Brighton.

So it comes as no surprise that Richard Leonard is up to the same kind of tricks and readers will recall that Richard (a former GMB union official) failed to speak out when the chips were down in Glasgow City Council last week.

All we heard then from the Scottish Labour leader in the run-up to Thursday's crunch meeting on the fight for equal pay in Glasgow was the sound of silence.

   

Brass Neck of 2017 (29/12/18)

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.