Glasgow - Equal Pay Update

I have been writing about Glasgow's Workforce Pay and Benefits Review (WPBR) for a long time and every so often I come across a post from the blog site archive which  makes me pause for thought and, occasionally, to laugh like a drain.

Here's a good example - a post I wrote for the blog site back in April 2008 criticising the so-called 'rules' of the WPBR which were completely invented by the designers of the scheme and 'signed-off' by the Council as well, of course.

So I was delighted with the news some 10 ten years later that Scotland's highest civil court, the Court of Session, judged the WPBR to be 'unfit for purpose' because that's exactly what I was saying on the blog site back in 2008.

And now in 2018 having claimed that they were acting in good faith over the WPBR, senior officials in Glasgow are trying to block my FOI request which would explain the role of chief officers in relation to the WPBR and hold them properly to account for their actions.

  

Glasgow - Pay and Grading Structure (09/04/08)

Glasgow new pay and grading structure (introduced in a mad rush in the winter of 2006) is now coming in for some intense scrutiny.

And what a strange creature it is too - like a horse designed by committee - the outcome is more 'camel' than noble steed.

Glasgow, uniquely among Scotland's councils, has invented a distinction between Core vs Non Core pay. No one had heard of this term before and no one is able to explain what it really means - because no one knows who is responsible for designing the new pay and grading structure.

Anyway, we can reveal that Core Pay has to do with the skills and responsibilities of people's jobs (allegedly) - whereas Non Core Pay has to do with when these hours are worked over the course of the working week, month or year.

More news will follow about Core Pay soon, but to focus on Non Core Pay for the moment it is indeed a weird and wonderful thing. Remember, the only reason for a new pay structure was to tackle widespread pay discrimination,  especially against female dominated jobs.

But lo and behold to qualify for Non Core pay Glasgow employees have to work full-time hours i.e. 37 hours per week whereas, as everyone knows, thousands of women work part-time hours and are automatically excluded from the outset.

People working full-time hours get 7 points under the Non Core pay formula which is worth £800 a year but worth nothing if you're a part-time worker. As everyone knows, the vast majority of part-time workers are women.
People working 'task and finish' (Task Completion) jobs get awarded another 7 points under the Non Core pay formula - worth another 7 points - but as everyone knows the only people working 'task and finish' are traditional male jobs (refuse collection and suchlike).

No female jobs enjoy these conditions - the women always have to work to the end of their normal working day and lose out again.

A full-time male worker doing a 'task and finish' job gets 14 points and an extra £1280 a year regardless of their job. Whilst a part-time female worker doing a full shift every day gets absolutely nothing - no matter what job she does.

Sound familiar? Sound like the rules have been made up to suit the traditional male jobs? 

We think so too.