Glasgow's Fight for Equal Pay
The fight for equal pay has been raging in Glasgow for the past 13 years, during which time Kevin McKenna has had precious little to say, but while The Herald columnist has arrived late to the 'party', he has finally done so and with a bit of a bang, I have to say.
Kevin's piece in today's newspaper lays into the role played by senior council officials which I've been banging on about via my blog for ages, as regular readers know.
Yet as well as Annemarie O'Donnell and Carole Forrest, Kevin takes a well-deserved swipe at:
- Previous Labour councils in Glasgow
- Richard Leonard, Scottish Labour leader
- Susan Aitken, the present SNP Council leader
- Nicola Sturgeon, Glasgow MSP and First Minister
If you ask me, all of Kevin's criticisms are reasonable and well made although it would have been nice if he had highlighted the lead role played by Stefan Cross and Action 4 Equality Scotland (A4ES) over the years, as well as the two striking trade unions, GMB and Unison, by name.
Otherwise, I cannot complain and the only thing I would add is that Glasgow City Council should hold an inquiry into how this awful scandal came about - starting with the way in which the City Council's 'unfit for purpose' WPBR pay scheme was procured and implemented back in 2006/07.
Kevin McKenna: Leader of Glasgow City Council needs to show officials she is real boss
By Kevin McKenna - The Herald
Protesters march to Glasgow's George Square. Picture: Kirsty Anderson
THE rate of social progress for women occurs at a glacial pace in some sectors of modern, enlightened Scotland. In Glasgow a century after Mary Barbour and her army staged their rent strike another band of working class women are still fighting exploitation and inequality. Mrs Barbour and her women faced down city landlords who sought to exploit the absence of men fighting in the First World War.
These greedy property barons were seeking to cash in on an influx of Highlanders earning good money in munitions factories by racking up rents and forcing the war wives and widows out. Mrs Barbour’s army went toe-to-toe with bailiff’s officers trying to evict their neighbours and finally marched on the sheriff court to support tenants being prosecuted for non-payment of the rent increases.
David Lloyd George was forced to intervene as Munitions Minister and the Rent Restrictions Act was passed within a month, a piece of legislation that inspired similar movements across the world. If some of the unelected executives in Glasgow City currently pulling down six-figure salaries had had their way Mary Barbour and her women would probably still be fighting this battle.
On Tuesday and Wednesday 11,000 women staged a strike and marched for the equal wages and the payment of a decade of back money to which their entitlement is now enshrined in law. A few streets away stuntmen in black sports cars and motorcycles were filming the latest in the Fast and Furious movie franchise, Hobbs and Shaw. In Glasgow’s city chambers the response by officials both elected and unelected could be described as aw and naw.
The leader of Glasgow City Council, Susan Aitken, tried to pat the women on the head while suggesting that they didn’t really know why they were striking. To be fair to Ms Aitken, she inherited this situation following a decade when the ruling Labour administration spent £2.5m fighting the claims of more than 14,000 mainly female public sector workers to have pay parity with their male colleagues. Such wretched conduct was characteristic of Labour in Scotland as it gradually lost the hearts and minds of its core support. Ms Aitken made the task of ending this dispute a primary manifesto commitment in 2016 and few doubt her desire or sincerity. Yet, at times during this dispute it seems that she, an elected official, is being undermined by those who have been wielding real power in Glasgow’s city chambers for far too long.
Certainly, there can be no doubt that the issue's genesis and its consequences lie at the door of successive Labour administrations and this rendered the messages of support from Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard hollow. A wiser course for Mr Leonard and the Pavlov Dogs in his party to have adopted would have been simply to have acknowledged Labour’s faults and pledged to support all sides in reaching a just settlement.
Yet, the SNP must also watch its step. It has spent 10 years at the task of taking Glasgow from Labour and has been able to occupy most of the moral high ground in this dispute. Some of the party’s rhetoric and tactics in the course of these febrile last few weeks, though, has been questionable. Whoever spun the line that the proposed two-day strike would put the health and lives of vulnerable people at risk obviously knows little about the issues at the heart of the dispute. Council executives were also given three weeks’ notice to make alternative arrangements.
Many of the women who took to Glasgow’s streets daily go above and beyond what is expected of them in caring for the city’s sick, elderly and infirm. This quality of care and the physical and psychological toll it exacts lies at the root of their fight for parity of esteem. They don’t need the HR and legal departments of Glasgow City Council and its chief executive Annemarie O’Donnell telling them what constitutes a threat to life. If these executives were so concerned they might ask about the stress levels encountered by the many female workers having to take on two shifts per day and still worried about whether this will be enough to meet the minimum pensionable level of pay. Many of the women prevented from obtaining their legally entitled back pay by the council’s pig-headedness have since experienced pension poverty after decades of underpaid service to this city.
These are troubles those who inhabit George Square’s executive suite will never encounter. Their remuneration packages along with all others at the council who earn more than £60k rose from 85 earning collectively £6,829,763 in 2013/14 to 91 who got £7,473,187 in 2015/16, according to the Investigative Journalism Unit, The Ferret.
Ms O’Donnell herself earned £180,894 in 2015/16, an increase of more than £14k in one year. When this dispute has been settled, Ms Aitken’s next task must be to hold these unelected executives to account. Their high-handed and arrogant attitude has probably cost the city tens of millions and led to increased hardship for thousands of claimants and their families. The elected leader of Glasgow City Council needs to show these people that she is the real boss.
She could start by asking why her chief executive missed 21 previous meetings to negotiate with trade unions before finally getting involved by threatening to deploy Thatcherite anti-trade union laws. The threatening letter about secondary strike action sent to the unions sent by Carole Forrest, the council’s director of governance on Tuesday night was a serious error of judgment. It risked escalating the dispute at a time when both sides were already beginning to release some air from the situation. It also betrayed ignorance of how trade unionism has shaped this city’s industrial history. Few Glasgow citizens have been left untouched by the kindness and hard work of these women over many decades. Many of us will eventually come to rely on their gentleness when it is our time for the soup and tartan blankets. We also have a near-sacred tradition of not crossing picket lines in a just dispute.
Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, tweeted her support of the Glasgow women but said the withdrawal of their labour was unnecessary. She was wrong, for this was a most necessary strike and a reminder that such actions still have a place in an industrial landscape that remains grossly unequal.
Protesters march to Glasgow's George Square. Picture: Kirsty Anderson
THE rate of social progress for women occurs at a glacial pace in some sectors of modern, enlightened Scotland. In Glasgow a century after Mary Barbour and her army staged their rent strike another band of working class women are still fighting exploitation and inequality. Mrs Barbour and her women faced down city landlords who sought to exploit the absence of men fighting in the First World War.
These greedy property barons were seeking to cash in on an influx of Highlanders earning good money in munitions factories by racking up rents and forcing the war wives and widows out. Mrs Barbour’s army went toe-to-toe with bailiff’s officers trying to evict their neighbours and finally marched on the sheriff court to support tenants being prosecuted for non-payment of the rent increases.
David Lloyd George was forced to intervene as Munitions Minister and the Rent Restrictions Act was passed within a month, a piece of legislation that inspired similar movements across the world. If some of the unelected executives in Glasgow City currently pulling down six-figure salaries had had their way Mary Barbour and her women would probably still be fighting this battle.
On Tuesday and Wednesday 11,000 women staged a strike and marched for the equal wages and the payment of a decade of back money to which their entitlement is now enshrined in law. A few streets away stuntmen in black sports cars and motorcycles were filming the latest in the Fast and Furious movie franchise, Hobbs and Shaw. In Glasgow’s city chambers the response by officials both elected and unelected could be described as aw and naw.
The leader of Glasgow City Council, Susan Aitken, tried to pat the women on the head while suggesting that they didn’t really know why they were striking. To be fair to Ms Aitken, she inherited this situation following a decade when the ruling Labour administration spent £2.5m fighting the claims of more than 14,000 mainly female public sector workers to have pay parity with their male colleagues. Such wretched conduct was characteristic of Labour in Scotland as it gradually lost the hearts and minds of its core support. Ms Aitken made the task of ending this dispute a primary manifesto commitment in 2016 and few doubt her desire or sincerity. Yet, at times during this dispute it seems that she, an elected official, is being undermined by those who have been wielding real power in Glasgow’s city chambers for far too long.
Certainly, there can be no doubt that the issue's genesis and its consequences lie at the door of successive Labour administrations and this rendered the messages of support from Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard hollow. A wiser course for Mr Leonard and the Pavlov Dogs in his party to have adopted would have been simply to have acknowledged Labour’s faults and pledged to support all sides in reaching a just settlement.
Yet, the SNP must also watch its step. It has spent 10 years at the task of taking Glasgow from Labour and has been able to occupy most of the moral high ground in this dispute. Some of the party’s rhetoric and tactics in the course of these febrile last few weeks, though, has been questionable. Whoever spun the line that the proposed two-day strike would put the health and lives of vulnerable people at risk obviously knows little about the issues at the heart of the dispute. Council executives were also given three weeks’ notice to make alternative arrangements.
Many of the women who took to Glasgow’s streets daily go above and beyond what is expected of them in caring for the city’s sick, elderly and infirm. This quality of care and the physical and psychological toll it exacts lies at the root of their fight for parity of esteem. They don’t need the HR and legal departments of Glasgow City Council and its chief executive Annemarie O’Donnell telling them what constitutes a threat to life. If these executives were so concerned they might ask about the stress levels encountered by the many female workers having to take on two shifts per day and still worried about whether this will be enough to meet the minimum pensionable level of pay. Many of the women prevented from obtaining their legally entitled back pay by the council’s pig-headedness have since experienced pension poverty after decades of underpaid service to this city.
These are troubles those who inhabit George Square’s executive suite will never encounter. Their remuneration packages along with all others at the council who earn more than £60k rose from 85 earning collectively £6,829,763 in 2013/14 to 91 who got £7,473,187 in 2015/16, according to the Investigative Journalism Unit, The Ferret.
Ms O’Donnell herself earned £180,894 in 2015/16, an increase of more than £14k in one year. When this dispute has been settled, Ms Aitken’s next task must be to hold these unelected executives to account. Their high-handed and arrogant attitude has probably cost the city tens of millions and led to increased hardship for thousands of claimants and their families. The elected leader of Glasgow City Council needs to show these people that she is the real boss.
She could start by asking why her chief executive missed 21 previous meetings to negotiate with trade unions before finally getting involved by threatening to deploy Thatcherite anti-trade union laws. The threatening letter about secondary strike action sent to the unions sent by Carole Forrest, the council’s director of governance on Tuesday night was a serious error of judgment. It risked escalating the dispute at a time when both sides were already beginning to release some air from the situation. It also betrayed ignorance of how trade unionism has shaped this city’s industrial history. Few Glasgow citizens have been left untouched by the kindness and hard work of these women over many decades. Many of us will eventually come to rely on their gentleness when it is our time for the soup and tartan blankets. We also have a near-sacred tradition of not crossing picket lines in a just dispute.
Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, tweeted her support of the Glasgow women but said the withdrawal of their labour was unnecessary. She was wrong, for this was a most necessary strike and a reminder that such actions still have a place in an industrial landscape that remains grossly unequal.
