Stefan Cross - An Honorary Glaswegian
From being adopted as an 'Honorary Glaswegian' to his new status as 'The Rock' Stefan Cross has captured the hearts of the Glasgow equal pay claimants who have been fighting for their right to equal pay for years.
He may be a 'balding, chubby middle-aged man' to some, but the unmistakeable message from Glasgow is that he's OUR 'balding, chubby, middle-aged man'.
u forgot to mention with a heart of gold
I.d still give u a free bed bath or a rub down wi a hot pie.xxx
ww Maggie this comment has made ma day 😂😂😂 xx
We like bold,chubby,middle aged men 👍 xx
We all thank you Stefan Cross ❤️👏❤️
Thank you so much for your hard work helping us with the equal pay your one in a million the fight gose on with you on our side we are all winners once again Stefan thank you so much
That kzfor all you have done for us Stefan. It means a lot to have someone stand up for hard working and underpaid women.
Brilliant article you’re our Hero Stefan x
as I say mr miyagi was a legend so enjoy the fame as next week you might be the most hated again . So as we say in glasga . Giz a shout and we’ll gie ye hawners . If ye need it .😂
LEGEND XX
Hero to those 8000+ who have your back 100% !
A GOOD MAN !!❤
Clicked the wrong GIF there sorry Stefan xx
Been with you from day one x thanks for all youve done and continue to do for us
Linda Ferris he might not be from Glasgow but he is an honary glaswigien one of the best
Our hero
You have had our backs for years weve got YOU & YOU alone to thnk for this, yes unions have came on board now & we thnku for that! but it shuld have happened years ago.
total agree x
Thank you stefan 💖
Stefan Cross is the focus of an in-depth interview for The Times by a former Scottish editor of the newspaper, Magnus Linklater.
Now Magnus does a decent job, by and large, of laying out Stefan's role in the fight for equal pay in Scotland although he does make one schoolboy error - I am not a solicitor.
In a former life I was Unison's chief negotiator and Head of Local Government in Scotland, but since 1999 I have been an independent consultant, equalities campaigner and keen blogger in support of equal pay and Action 4 Equality Scotland.
Anyway, back to Stefan who hits the nail on the head when he says that none of this would have happened if it had not been for the women themselves, before adding:
“The bottom line is that it has all been driven by the women. They are the ones that have backed us, to the point where the trade unions have accepted that we lead the fight with the backing of the women.”
“They have grown hugely in confidence. I have to say that the big change has been social media and Facebook. That made a tremendous difference to the campaign, because it meant that the level and frequency of communication was phenomenally on a different scale to what it had been before.
“Previously you would write a letter every six months to explain what was going on and usually those letters would be dry and factual and most would go in the bin. But now we are communicating with our clients on a weekly or daily basis and they communicate with each other. They set up a Facebook group, which now has over 2,000 members just in Glasgow. They give each other confidence that they are not alone — it’s just amazing.”
Magnus Linklater
‘We were complete pariahs, even unions wouldn’t sit down with us’
What is the book on your bedside table?
What disc would you take to your desert island?
Who would you take on a one-way trip to Mars?
What was the best piece of advice you were ever given?
M&S or Savile Row?
A week off: watching a box set or striding the hills?
Tell us a secret
Been with you from day one x thanks for all youve done and continue to do for us
Linda Ferris he might not be from Glasgow but he is an honary glaswigien one of the best
You are the Rock
Our hero
You have had our backs for years weve got YOU & YOU alone to thnk for this, yes unions have came on board now & we thnku for that! but it shuld have happened years ago.
total agree x
Thank you Stefan Cross you are great x
Saw you at the March and I thought, " There's the man that got us here " Heart of gold, we'd be nowhere without you Stefan , thank you x
Day dot with this team .......and if it wasn’t for Stefan Cross and his team we wouldn’t be we’re we are today ❤️ Thank you xx
Saw you at the March and I thought, " There's the man that got us here " Heart of gold, we'd be nowhere without you Stefan , thank you x
Day dot with this team .......and if it wasn’t for Stefan Cross and his team we wouldn’t be we’re we are today ❤️ Thank you xx
Thank you stefan 💖
Thanks your a star🌟
You started all of this Stefan👍 and thanks to you and also now the unions we will all finish it together 👏👏👏
A big thank you. You are a remarkable human being who recognises us women are worth so much more.
You never gave up and for that, Thank you!. 👏👏👏x
What a ⭐️ you are x
Your the Man , thank you ❤
Great read. Thank you x
I don’t care what u look like Stefan ifs inside that matters and u have proved that to us so many times over so thank u for that God bless u x
Jealousy is A Disease Stefan Cross well done and Thankyou supporting all us women xx
Our super hero 👏 Stefan x
You started all of this Stefan👍 and thanks to you and also now the unions we will all finish it together 👏👏👏
A big thank you. You are a remarkable human being who recognises us women are worth so much more.
You never gave up and for that, Thank you!. 👏👏👏x
What a ⭐️ you are x
Your the Man , thank you ❤
Great read. Thank you x
I don’t care what u look like Stefan ifs inside that matters and u have proved that to us so many times over so thank u for that God bless u x
Jealousy is A Disease Stefan Cross well done and Thankyou supporting all us women xx
Our super hero 👏 Stefan x
Stefan Cross - Follically Challenged, Cuddly, Venerable Legend! (27/10/18)
Stefan Cross is the focus of an in-depth interview for The Times by a former Scottish editor of the newspaper, Magnus Linklater.
Now Magnus does a decent job, by and large, of laying out Stefan's role in the fight for equal pay in Scotland although he does make one schoolboy error - I am not a solicitor.
In a former life I was Unison's chief negotiator and Head of Local Government in Scotland, but since 1999 I have been an independent consultant, equalities campaigner and keen blogger in support of equal pay and Action 4 Equality Scotland.
Anyway, back to Stefan who hits the nail on the head when he says that none of this would have happened if it had not been for the women themselves, before adding:
“The bottom line is that it has all been driven by the women. They are the ones that have backed us, to the point where the trade unions have accepted that we lead the fight with the backing of the women.”
“They have grown hugely in confidence. I have to say that the big change has been social media and Facebook. That made a tremendous difference to the campaign, because it meant that the level and frequency of communication was phenomenally on a different scale to what it had been before.
“Previously you would write a letter every six months to explain what was going on and usually those letters would be dry and factual and most would go in the bin. But now we are communicating with our clients on a weekly or daily basis and they communicate with each other. They set up a Facebook group, which now has over 2,000 members just in Glasgow. They give each other confidence that they are not alone — it’s just amazing.”
Now that's fair comment if you ask me, though slightly less fair and sexist is the description of Stefan as a "bald, chubby, middle-aged man".
Would Magnus have taken that attitude if he had been talking about a woman?
Well if he had been foolish enough to do so with one of the Glasgow claimants, he'd be sure to have come away with his head in his hands.
So a word to the wise Magnus, you're no oil painting yourself!
Magnus Linklater
‘We were complete pariahs, even unions wouldn’t sit down with us’
By Magnus Linklater - The Times
Stefan Cross said women were being discriminated against by the unions, which concentrated on protecting jobs for their members who were mostly men - BEN GURR FOR THE TIMES
As more than 8,000 women poured through the streets of Glasgow this week demanding equal pay, some of the loudest cheers were for a bald, chubby, middle-aged man.
He was the only man invited on to the platform, where he gave a brief wave to the crowds. Some of the women insisted on having their pictures taken alongside him.
Stefan Cross, 57, is not a union boss, SNP politician, councillor or even a Glaswegian. He is a London-based QC, married with four children, who has a taste for fast cars and a healthy contempt for trade unions. He is also, to the Glasgow women, a hero. Without him, they would not be where they are today: within touching distance of a fair deal on pay.
For all the union banners waving in the sun as the women marched through the streets, this is not a tale of union power — indeed, the unions are latecomers to the cause.
Thirteen years ago, when Mr Cross, his partner, the solicitor Mark Irvine, and their little group Action 4 Equality Scotland took up the fight, some of their sternest opponents were the trade unions, fearful that more pay for women meant fewer jobs for men.
Mr Cross confesses that he had “a load of mixed emotions” as he marched alongside the women he has represented for so long. “I think back to 13 years ago this month when I and Mark Irvine launched the first cases against Glasgow,” he says. “We were absolutely on our own, just us and the few women who were able to put in claims.
“The whole council, the unions and the government were all slagging us off. We were complete pariahs. And then, 13 years later, we are still in the struggle but we are joined by all the unions and all these people and the result is an amazing event.”
It has been quite a journey. Brought up in the south of England, Mr Cross was the first in a family beset by money worries to gain an O level and then entry to university. He became a trade union activist in his teens, studied law and worked for a firm of union solicitors.
Gradually, however, he came to realise that the unions were not doing much of a job for women, being more intent on protecting jobs for their members — who were mostly men. His early campaigns earned their outright hostility and won him the title “most hated lawyer in Britain”. He regarded it as a badge of honour.
On many occasions he has been accused of being an ambulance chaser, earning substantial fees for spotting opportunities where women were paid less than men doing equivalent jobs. And he has done well. He used to own a Porsche, before swapping it for a Ferrari. These days he picks up his daughter from school in a Tesla electric car. But he charges mainly on a no-win, no-fee basis and it has not all been plain sailing. On several occasions his company faced possible bankruptcy. He is proud of the multimillion-pound payouts he has won for underpaid women in cities across England, including Cleveland, Middlesbrough and Birmingham, always in the teeth of opposition.
“If you go back to 2005 in Glasgow it was a very hostile environment,” he says. “I was in the middle of litigation against the trade unions, demonstrating that they were discriminating against their female members — the exact opposite of the position they were seeking to portray.
“Instead of backing the women the first thing they would do was run off and get a dodgy deal with the employers. The women remember this. A lot of them lost out as a result. As we carried on the fight and won stage by stage and demonstrated that what we were doing was the right thing, slowly but surely different trade union officials have thawed and talked with us.”
The contrast between then and now could hardly be more stark. Twelve years ago, he says, there was an instruction to all union officials that they were not even allowed to be in the same room as him. “They literally wouldn’t sit down with me,” he says. Now, in Scotland though not yet in England, the unions have come on board; first Unison then, in the past 18 months, the GMB, and finally Unite.
“There has been a complete cultural change in the leadership, and that’s made a tremendous difference,” Mr Cross says. “So, though they haven’t been on board for so long they’ve really pitched in, and this year we’ve had Unite join, which is a remarkable thing, because they were very much . . . I wouldn’t use the word dinosaur, but they were stuck in the past for longer than anyone else. But now they’ve come on board.”
None of that would have happened, he says, if it had not been for the women themselves.
“The bottom line is that it has all been driven by the women,” he says. They are the ones that have backed us, to the point where the trade unions have accepted that we lead the fight with the backing of the women.”
On Tuesday in Glasgow he watched in admiration as women who would never have dared to stand up in public before climbed on to the platform to deliver speech after passionate speech. “They have grown hugely in confidence,” he says. “I have to say that the big change has been social media and Facebook. That made a tremendous difference to the campaign, because it meant that the level and frequency of communication was phenomenally on a different scale to what it had been before.
“Previously you would write a letter every six months to explain what was going on and usually those letters would be dry and factual and most would go in the bin. But now we are communicating with our clients on a weekly or daily basis and they communicate with each other. They set up a Facebook group, which now has over 2,000 members just in Glasgow. They give each other confidence that they are not alone — it’s just amazing.”
There is still a long way to go. Although Susan Aitken, the leader of Glasgow council, has promised to assess more than 3,000 jobs done by women, mainly in the care sector, Mr Cross says that little progress has been made in ten months of negotiation.
“It’s been said that the council has agreed a new pay and grade structure, but that’s just not true,” he says. “They have agreed a new approach to job evaluation, but not the pay and grade structure. Somebody who has been doing the briefings has mixed them all up and given out an incorrect message from the officer side. It’s very disappointing. Hopefully this week we will tell the leader that the information she is getting from elsewhere is incorrect.”
The sticking point, of course, is the huge cost that will be involved if women who do essential jobs such as home visits for the elderly have to be paid the same rates as road workers or mechanics. Some estimates put it as high as £600 million. Mr Cross does not dissent.
“We have tried to break the deadlock,” he says. “We presented them with our calculations way back in May. Now if they don’t agree with them or we’ve done something wrong, then they should be pointing that out. The leadership has repeatedly said that they would pay what the women are entitled to. Even if you get to the point of saying, well we think the entitlement is £500 million not £600 million, then that’s a discussion I would expect to have taken place.
“If they say, well OK it’s £700 million, and we haven’t got £700 million, that’s a separate discussion but they are refusing to have any of those discussions or put forward any numbers for discussion.”
Presumably the council hopes that it will be a great deal less than that. He is not impressed.
“This is not a time for praying,” he says briskly, “it’s a time for action.”
As more than 8,000 women poured through the streets of Glasgow this week demanding equal pay, some of the loudest cheers were for a bald, chubby, middle-aged man.
He was the only man invited on to the platform, where he gave a brief wave to the crowds. Some of the women insisted on having their pictures taken alongside him.
Stefan Cross, 57, is not a union boss, SNP politician, councillor or even a Glaswegian. He is a London-based QC, married with four children, who has a taste for fast cars and a healthy contempt for trade unions. He is also, to the Glasgow women, a hero. Without him, they would not be where they are today: within touching distance of a fair deal on pay.
For all the union banners waving in the sun as the women marched through the streets, this is not a tale of union power — indeed, the unions are latecomers to the cause.
Thirteen years ago, when Mr Cross, his partner, the solicitor Mark Irvine, and their little group Action 4 Equality Scotland took up the fight, some of their sternest opponents were the trade unions, fearful that more pay for women meant fewer jobs for men.
Mr Cross confesses that he had “a load of mixed emotions” as he marched alongside the women he has represented for so long. “I think back to 13 years ago this month when I and Mark Irvine launched the first cases against Glasgow,” he says. “We were absolutely on our own, just us and the few women who were able to put in claims.
“The whole council, the unions and the government were all slagging us off. We were complete pariahs. And then, 13 years later, we are still in the struggle but we are joined by all the unions and all these people and the result is an amazing event.”
It has been quite a journey. Brought up in the south of England, Mr Cross was the first in a family beset by money worries to gain an O level and then entry to university. He became a trade union activist in his teens, studied law and worked for a firm of union solicitors.
Gradually, however, he came to realise that the unions were not doing much of a job for women, being more intent on protecting jobs for their members — who were mostly men. His early campaigns earned their outright hostility and won him the title “most hated lawyer in Britain”. He regarded it as a badge of honour.
On many occasions he has been accused of being an ambulance chaser, earning substantial fees for spotting opportunities where women were paid less than men doing equivalent jobs. And he has done well. He used to own a Porsche, before swapping it for a Ferrari. These days he picks up his daughter from school in a Tesla electric car. But he charges mainly on a no-win, no-fee basis and it has not all been plain sailing. On several occasions his company faced possible bankruptcy. He is proud of the multimillion-pound payouts he has won for underpaid women in cities across England, including Cleveland, Middlesbrough and Birmingham, always in the teeth of opposition.
“If you go back to 2005 in Glasgow it was a very hostile environment,” he says. “I was in the middle of litigation against the trade unions, demonstrating that they were discriminating against their female members — the exact opposite of the position they were seeking to portray.
“Instead of backing the women the first thing they would do was run off and get a dodgy deal with the employers. The women remember this. A lot of them lost out as a result. As we carried on the fight and won stage by stage and demonstrated that what we were doing was the right thing, slowly but surely different trade union officials have thawed and talked with us.”
The contrast between then and now could hardly be more stark. Twelve years ago, he says, there was an instruction to all union officials that they were not even allowed to be in the same room as him. “They literally wouldn’t sit down with me,” he says. Now, in Scotland though not yet in England, the unions have come on board; first Unison then, in the past 18 months, the GMB, and finally Unite.
“There has been a complete cultural change in the leadership, and that’s made a tremendous difference,” Mr Cross says. “So, though they haven’t been on board for so long they’ve really pitched in, and this year we’ve had Unite join, which is a remarkable thing, because they were very much . . . I wouldn’t use the word dinosaur, but they were stuck in the past for longer than anyone else. But now they’ve come on board.”
None of that would have happened, he says, if it had not been for the women themselves.
“The bottom line is that it has all been driven by the women,” he says. They are the ones that have backed us, to the point where the trade unions have accepted that we lead the fight with the backing of the women.”
On Tuesday in Glasgow he watched in admiration as women who would never have dared to stand up in public before climbed on to the platform to deliver speech after passionate speech. “They have grown hugely in confidence,” he says. “I have to say that the big change has been social media and Facebook. That made a tremendous difference to the campaign, because it meant that the level and frequency of communication was phenomenally on a different scale to what it had been before.
“Previously you would write a letter every six months to explain what was going on and usually those letters would be dry and factual and most would go in the bin. But now we are communicating with our clients on a weekly or daily basis and they communicate with each other. They set up a Facebook group, which now has over 2,000 members just in Glasgow. They give each other confidence that they are not alone — it’s just amazing.”
There is still a long way to go. Although Susan Aitken, the leader of Glasgow council, has promised to assess more than 3,000 jobs done by women, mainly in the care sector, Mr Cross says that little progress has been made in ten months of negotiation.
“It’s been said that the council has agreed a new pay and grade structure, but that’s just not true,” he says. “They have agreed a new approach to job evaluation, but not the pay and grade structure. Somebody who has been doing the briefings has mixed them all up and given out an incorrect message from the officer side. It’s very disappointing. Hopefully this week we will tell the leader that the information she is getting from elsewhere is incorrect.”
The sticking point, of course, is the huge cost that will be involved if women who do essential jobs such as home visits for the elderly have to be paid the same rates as road workers or mechanics. Some estimates put it as high as £600 million. Mr Cross does not dissent.
“We have tried to break the deadlock,” he says. “We presented them with our calculations way back in May. Now if they don’t agree with them or we’ve done something wrong, then they should be pointing that out. The leadership has repeatedly said that they would pay what the women are entitled to. Even if you get to the point of saying, well we think the entitlement is £500 million not £600 million, then that’s a discussion I would expect to have taken place.
“If they say, well OK it’s £700 million, and we haven’t got £700 million, that’s a separate discussion but they are refusing to have any of those discussions or put forward any numbers for discussion.”
Presumably the council hopes that it will be a great deal less than that. He is not impressed.
“This is not a time for praying,” he says briskly, “it’s a time for action.”
Q&A
What is the book on your bedside table?
Crudo by Olivia Laing, a feminist novel
What disc would you take to your desert island?
Power, Corruption and Lies by New Order
Who would you take on a one-way trip to Mars?
Baroness Hale of Richmond, first woman president of the Supreme Court
What was the best piece of advice you were ever given?
It came from my brother-in-law: “If you ever want to make an impact you have to own the company.”
M&S or Savile Row?
I’m Mr Casual
A week off: watching a box set or striding the hills?
I’d go to the nearest rock festival
Tell us a secret
My brother-in-law, Christopher Steele, wrote the Trump dossier [which alleged links with Moscow].
