Listen to the Claimants 2
Stefan Cross has been at the sharp end of every equal pay settlement that has been negotiated in Scotland's councils and Stefan confirmed yesterday, in the following Facebook post, that the major agreements took just 6 to 9 months to complete.
Now I expect Glasgow councillors to listen carefully to what their officials have to say, but these officials made the completely wrong call when their stubborn defence of the City Council's pay arrangements was torn to shreds at the Court of Session, Scotland's highest civil court, where three senior judges concluded, unanimously, that the WPBR was 'unfit for purpose'.
So a little humility would be in order if you ask me, particularly as these same senior officials have been defending the cockamamy WPBR pay scheme for years including its blatantly discriminatory 37 hour 'rule' which was designed to disadvantage the City Council's largely female workforce.
Perhaps Glasgow's councillors would now like to take up Stefan's invitation to engage directly with the claimants' representatives (A4ES, GMB and Unison) instead of listening only to senior council officials have to say and accepting their word as 'gospel'.
MHAIRI TALES IN GLASGOW
Here Mark sets out an exchange with Cllr Mhairi Hunter.
Now Mhairi is one of the more vocal local politicians, very active on social media. She says a lot but she doesn’t seem to want to listen to the claimants or their representatives. It seems she’s only got an ear for Officers.
She has declined or ignored all our invitations to be briefed on the equal pay issues. Instead she trots out misinformation from officers.
She says negotiations often took 12-18 months. This is not true of any of the major negotiations, South and North Lanarkshire’s took 6 - 9 months.
As Glasgow City Council's lawyers were involved in those too we ought to be able to learn from them and work quicker not more slowly.
Still, the invitation to meet and learn the truth, is always there Mhairi.
Stefan
Here's an interesting Twitter exchange I became involved in the other day with Mhairi Hunter, a Glasgow councillor, and Mark Martin, an equal pay claimant from Glasgow.
Now I don't know Mark Martin, but he made a number of very valid points if you ask me, including the one about the Council's senior officials having a conflict of interest.
Because the same group of senior officials who introduced the WPBR are still defending its cockamamy practices including the 37 hour 'rule' which was designed to discriminate against the Council's largely female workforce.
The same is true of other aspects of the WPBR pay scheme, overtime working for example, and the less generally less favourable terms and conditions imposed on Cordia employees for years - compared to their colleagues in other parts of the 'Council Family'.
Mhairi Hunter does not explain what she means by 'misinformation', but it is wrong to say that settlement negotiations in other Scottish councils took 12 to 18 months.
I know how long settlement negotiations took in other Scottish councils because I was involved in them, as part of the A4ES team
If senior officials are telling Glasgow councillors that settlement negotiations in other Scottish councils all took 12 to 18 months, no wonder things are moving so slowly - because they are wrong.
But what this does is to highlight the need for Glasgow's political leaders to be speaking directly with the claimants' representatives and not to take as 'gospel' everything they hear from Council officials.
At the moment the only source of information to councillors seems to be the same group of senior officials who assured previous administrations that the WPBR was as 'sound as a pound' and that the Council would easily win the battle at the Court of Session over the WPBR.
Now this proved to be extremely bad advice, yet the same officials who gave this advice to the last Labour council now appear to be giving the same general advice to the SNP administration which assumed control of Glasgow City Council in May 2017.
So the moral of the story is for senior councillors to listen to the claimants and their representatives - instead of relying 100% on what their officials have to say.
Because officials are not just reversing previous decisions such as the decision to create Cordia and other ALEOs - officials are actually re-writing history by proclaiming Cordia as a great success story.
While glossing over the fact that Cordia was set up to help the City Council wriggle out of its obligations on equal pay and that Cordia has been treating its largely female workforce as 'second class citizens' for years.
Stefan
Glasgow - Listen to the Claimants 1 (09/05/18)
Now I don't know Mark Martin, but he made a number of very valid points if you ask me, including the one about the Council's senior officials having a conflict of interest.
Because the same group of senior officials who introduced the WPBR are still defending its cockamamy practices including the 37 hour 'rule' which was designed to discriminate against the Council's largely female workforce.
The same is true of other aspects of the WPBR pay scheme, overtime working for example, and the less generally less favourable terms and conditions imposed on Cordia employees for years - compared to their colleagues in other parts of the 'Council Family'.
Mhairi Hunter does not explain what she means by 'misinformation', but it is wrong to say that settlement negotiations in other Scottish councils took 12 to 18 months.
I know how long settlement negotiations took in other Scottish councils because I was involved in them, as part of the A4ES team
If senior officials are telling Glasgow councillors that settlement negotiations in other Scottish councils all took 12 to 18 months, no wonder things are moving so slowly - because they are wrong.
But what this does is to highlight the need for Glasgow's political leaders to be speaking directly with the claimants' representatives and not to take as 'gospel' everything they hear from Council officials.
At the moment the only source of information to councillors seems to be the same group of senior officials who assured previous administrations that the WPBR was as 'sound as a pound' and that the Council would easily win the battle at the Court of Session over the WPBR.
Now this proved to be extremely bad advice, yet the same officials who gave this advice to the last Labour council now appear to be giving the same general advice to the SNP administration which assumed control of Glasgow City Council in May 2017.
So the moral of the story is for senior councillors to listen to the claimants and their representatives - instead of relying 100% on what their officials have to say.
Because officials are not just reversing previous decisions such as the decision to create Cordia and other ALEOs - officials are actually re-writing history by proclaiming Cordia as a great success story.
While glossing over the fact that Cordia was set up to help the City Council wriggle out of its obligations on equal pay and that Cordia has been treating its largely female workforce as 'second class citizens' for years.
- I've emptied the bins. - Mhairi Hunter
Did you know that the only thing stopping and holding up the women of gcc getting there equal pay after 10+years are yes you guessed it WOMEN? Chief exec /director of governance /leader gcc . And first minister as she could step in and force settlements or speed it up . -Mark Martin
Because we are not allowed to disclose details of negotiations. Similar cases have taken 12-18 months in other councils so if ppl are telling you it can be done quickly that is simply untrue.Mhairi Hunter
Similar cases in other councils have not taken 12 to 18 months - and if this is what senior officials are telling Glasgow councillors, it may help to explain why settlement negotiations in Glasgow are making so little progress.
No it's not a very fair point. Officers perform their roles under political direction. It was a political choice by Labour to create Cordia as an ALEO just as it is a political choice by the SNP to reverse that. - Mhairi Hunter
Are you saying that the political direction of councillors was responsible for Cordia treating its employees as second class members of the Glasgow Council Family? If so, the same logic must surely apply to the 'unfit for purpose' WPBR. - Mark Irvine
