Mr Crystal Ball vs Mr Know-It-All
Here's something you don't see every day - an elected Glasgow Councillor who thinks he's part of the Council's management.
Now I've mentioned Cllr Campbell before on the blog site, as Graham thinks he's something of a 'Mr Know-It-All' when it comes to equal pay, given his background as a 'trade unionist' - whatever that means.
In any event, Glasgow councillors represent the City Council as a 'corporate body' and 'employer' - elected politicians are not part of the management or the council workforce for that matter.
I suspect Graham's Facebook post is based on an internal Council briefing because he trots out a whole number of confusing and misleading arguments:
- the strike was unnecessary
- the strike was politically motivated
- the workers are not being kept informed
- the council has already agreed to all pay demands
- the council has dropped the pay litigation in the courts
- Cordia coming back in-house has stopped pay inequality
- the 'unfit for purpose' WPBR scheme has been scrapped
- the council will not know the cost of settlement until 2019, but will have a settlement in place by December 2018
If you ask me, either Mr Know-It-All doesn't know what he's talking about - or his crystal ball has run out of batteries.
But the weirdest thing is that while this self-proclaimed, long-standing trade unionist has plenty of criticism for the trade unions and has the cheek to be snide about Stefan Cross and A4ES - he has not a single word of criticism for the senior management of the council.
Maybe it's because Graham think's he's 'one of them'.
Cllr Graham Campbell - October 25 2018
Glasgow is a gallus city indeed. That is why thousands of our working women were on strike for equal pay these last two days. Technically I am one of "the management" they are striking against - as a Glasgow City Councillor. However I 100% support their right to strike and fully back the just demands they make. Some of those I spoke to (including women from my constituency) told me they knew it's the SNP Council administration which has done more in the last year to rectify the mess Labour left behind – than any previous administration.
I totally understand - that after many of them will have waited for 12 years for equal pay justice and not got it - why they have taken industrial action. It's out of total frustration that it has taken so long to resolve. I would ask for a little more patience for just a little bit longer though.
We are negotiating with a panel of trade unions and a class action legal group Action for Equality (A4E) led by lawyer Stefan Cross who stands to make significant sums out of any settlement based on no-win-no-fee. However he has the majority of the claimants with him precisely because the unions failed to help their members back in 2006 and since then for over 10 years. This is only happening now because legal action brought things to a head in 2017. The unions were really scrambling to catch up with A4E having not called serious industrial action on behalf of the mainly women workers discriminated against by the pay and grading system they helped Labour to bring in.
Some very misleading and politicising statements have been put out there - to which we can't respond because we've all agreed not to make public statements about it until negotiations are completed.
But this strike was totally unnecessary and on the part of some – although certainly not most union reps – may have been motivated by wanting to 'have a go' at the SNP administration – the only Council leadership that has dealt fairly with the issue of equal pay. As Susan Aitken said - the women won their case the day she was elected as Council Leader.
However it may also be the case that workers are not being kept aware by both management and unions of how the negotiations are progressing. This will undoubtedly have added to their sense of frustration and anger at the sexist inequality of the WBPR pay and grading scheme agreed by the then Labour Council and the Trade unions.
It should be said that most of the players involved on both sides now – were not there in 2006. We have all inherited a mess from a Labour Council administration that refused to resolve it. We changed all that. The strike was unnecessary because we have already agreed all their central demands: We acted
a) to drop Council legal action brought by the last Labour administration to fight their legal discrimination cases. We then agreed to negotiate a settlement with unions. Labour leaders refused for 10 years to even meet the unions who had to talk to council lawyers;
b) to bring Cordia (the social care ALEO) staff back in house to the Council - This took place in September 2018 and at a stroke stops any ongoing pay inequality;
c) to scrap the unfair WPBR pay and grading system which we did last month after reviewing it at the unions' request; and
d) to have an equal pay settlement within a year - which is up in December - in which we are well on the way to getting an agreement by the deadline
(NB - it took Birmingham 3 years to settle their equal pay dispute but we're doing it in 1 year! No one else has done it that quickly)
As a trade unionist of long standing – I personally know what it means to bring people out on strike. I know what it means to ask fellow workers to sacrifice days of pay for the sake of a concrete goal – whether it’s better pay and conditions, protection of public health and safety or a change in attitude of your management - especially when your employer is not listening to you.
But in this case it was completely unjustified and unnecessary as not only are we listening but we agree with the workers' demands. And we are making provision to pay for the settlement to meet then - even though this potentially could have a negative effect on public services depending on how big the bill is. We don't know yet and won't know the true scale of its cost until early next year, However whatever the cost - Equal Pay is simply the right thing to do.
Sadly unions and management were unable to properly coordinate the full emergency cover necessary for about 1200 vulnerable service users who need 24 hour personal care. 90 of them had to be moved into hospitals. Although workers will have made local ad hoc arrangements many relatives and partners will have had to drop everything to care for them. Parents will have had to take days off work as schools were shut,
We should all have in mind that it is all of Glasgow's workers (including those who took action this week) who pay the city's bills.On behalf of the citizens of Glasgow who recognise the amazing work these workers do - we have shown in deeds that we mean what we said: We had some of these commitments in our SNP Council election manifesto in May 2017. Essentially we are sorting out a mess that was left for us by the outgoing Labour administration. I am proud to say 'We 100% support and will deliver Equal Pay justice' - and it can’t come a moment too soon.
