Thin Air Plucker (2)
Here's a very interesting article on the next phase of Glasgow's long running equal pay dispute which appeared in the Sunday Herald back on 7 July 2019.
Now what jumped out to me at the time was the language used by the Council Leader Susan Aitken to pour cold water on the suggestion that the next wave of equal pay claims will result in another very large bill.
Cllr Aitken said much the same thing in August 2018 when she accused Stefan Cross of 'plucking figures out the air' when, in fact, Stefan's £500 million plus estimate of the final costs proved to be spot on - see posts below dated 24 and 28 August 2018.
Yet Susan Aitken tried to rubbish the GMB figure of £250 million worth of new claims even though the Council's 'unfit for purpose' WPBR is still in operation until 2021 at least and the number of Glasgow Claimants has rocketed to over 19,000 - and counting.
“These are nonsense figures, plucked from thin air – and it is worth remembering that pretty much every single prediction anyone has ever made about this has been wrong."
So it's simply not true to say that every single prediction anyone has ever made about the fight for equal pay in Glasgow has been wrong - and here's the evidence to prove otherwise.
https://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/17754385.trade-union-boss-warns-glasgow-city-council-go-bankrupt-250m-new-equal-pay-claims/
Equal Pay Glasgow: Trade union boss warns city council could go 'bankrupt' over £250m new claims
By Paul Hutcheon - The Sunday Herald (7 July 2019)
EQUAL PAY
Equal Pay Glasgow: Trade union boss warns city council could go 'bankrupt' over £250m new claims
A trade union boss has warned that Glasgow city council could effectively become bankrupt over £250m worth of new equal pay claims.
Gary Smith, who leads the GMB in Scotland, said a fresh round of claims would be submitted by female workers months after an initial £500m settlement was secured.
He said he feared Glasgow could become like a US city that famously went bust: "It could be Detroit without the soundtrack."
However, SNP council leader Susan Aitken hit back yesterday: “These are nonsense figures, plucked from thin air – and it is worth remembering that pretty much every single prediction anyone has ever made about this has been wrong."
Susan Aitken: Glasgow equal pay campaigners deserved and earned every penny
Earlier this year, the city council appeared to end a long-running dispute with thousands of female staff who had been paid less than men on the same grade.
The council challenged the claims for years before the incoming SNP administration changed tacked and settled.
The local authority’s strategy for meeting the £500m bill was for a council spin-off firm to take a loan out against the city’s publicly-owned buildings. Women are in line for an average payment of £35,000.
However, the disputed pay structure is still in place and the GMB, which represents many of the staff, is helping female workers put in a new wave of claims.
Smith’s GMB union was criticised in previous years for not doing enough to help the female workers, but his appointment in 2015 led to a rethink and his colleagues have since vigorously represented the women.
READ MORE: Thousands of women having chunks of equal pay award taken away to settle council tax debts
Speaking to our sister publication, the Herald on Sunday, Smith said the £500m may only be the beginning for the council:
“The women are still being discriminated against in Glasgow because there is not a new pay and grading structure in place. For every second these women are at work they are losing out.
“As new people are employed by the council, as soon as they start, many of them are going to have claims against the council as well. The council is paying out £500-plus million, and it is immediately racking up the credit card bill again.”
He put a figure on what the new bill may come to: “By 2021 the city council will need to find at least another £250 million to fully settle its historic sex discrimination against its employees and it will need to implement a new job evaluation system to address that discrimination once and for all.”
Smith is worried that Glasgow may fail to pay its bills: “I don’t know, in real terms, if cities can go bankrupt in the UK, but to all intents and purposes Glasgow is going to run out of money. If you want to call that bankruptcy, fine.
"At some point, the Scottish Government is going to have to step in. You cannot keep remortgaging all the buildings in Glasgow. You can’t keep cutting services."
“There is a precedent for cities going bust elsewhere in the world. I don’t think you can let Scotland’s biggest city go bankrupt, but something has got to be done to reverse the decline of Glasgow and, once and for all, sort out the debts.”
The SNP currently runs the council, but Smith says the political blame predates Nationalist control: “You have got an administration now that is dealing with generations of mismanagement. You cannot heap all the blame on the current political administration, but there is no easy way out of this.”
However, he is angry that council officials who he regards as responsible for past mistakes are still in post.
“On the face of it, it feels like the people who were there when we got into this mess are still there now. And that is pretty staggering,” he said.
Aitken added: “Until we implement a new pay scheme, there will be further equal pay claims to settle. Everybody knows that – it was in the paper we took to committee. We are factoring this into our funding strategy. However, the claims will be smaller in number and they will also cover a far shorter period.”
Stefan Cross is not a 'thin air plucker' or even a 'thin air plucker's son' despite what Susan Aitken had to say on yesterday's Good Morning Scotland radio programme.
Councillor Aitken accused Stefan Cross QC of plucking a figure of £500 million out of 'thin air' as the potential cost of settling around 12,500 outstanding equal pay claims with Glasgow City Council.
Yet as someone who has worked very closely with Stefan and Action 4 Equality Scotland during the long fight for equal pay, I can confirm that Stefan is a real 'stickler' for detail who does not make exaggerated claims and knows what he is taking about.
So it came as no surprise that the Glasgow City Council leader was forced into reverse gear PDQ (Pretty Damn Quick) in a later interview for the BBC's Reporting Scotland programme in which Susan herself conceded that the final bill in Glasgow will run to 'hundreds of millions of pounds'.
The even better news is that Stefan has his 'right of reply' in this morning's Good Morning Scotland programme at around 8.15 am, so tune in this morning and hear what Stefan has to say.
In the meantime, here's a YouTube recording of Susan's unfortunate comments from Thursday and if you ask me the best thing to do now is for Susan Aitken to invite Stefan Cross for a friendly, if businesslike, chat over a nice cup of tea.
Because a little more listening and a little more respect towards the claimants (and their representatives) would do Glasgow's equal pay settlement talks the world of good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HaR015hgiw
Susan Aitken - SNP Leader of Glasgow City Council. Interviewed by Gillian Marles on BBC GMS radio discussing the impact historic equal pay claims (dating back to a Job Evaluation Scheme introduced in 2006 under the previous Labour administration) may have on Glasgow City Council
Stefan Cross
"Apparently I ‘plucked figures out of the air’ - this is a lie and defamatory
"Our figures are clearly calculated
"But judge for yourself whose telling the truth"
The GMB union steps into the row over the likely costs of resolving the long-running equal pay dispute in Glasgow City Council.
Stefan and his team have put countless hours into calculations - outstripping anything the Council has produced. Outrageous thing for @SusaninLangside to have said.
@SusaninLangside on good morning Scotland you accused me of “plucking figures out of the air”. Untrue.We’ve given GCC detailed calcs. You might not agree with them but theyre not “plucked out of the air” For a settlement you need me. Defaming me not helpful. Apology please
Here's an interesting statement that just might have a significant impact on the fight for equal pay in Glasgow City Council.
"The whole issue arose out of the fact that the (WPBR) pay and grading scheme the Council has, has been found to discriminate against women, and we completely accept that it does."
Now these words were spoken by Cllr Mhairi Hunter whom I have met previously to discuss Glasgow's equal pay dispute and who has accompanied Council Leader, Susan Aitken, to an equal pay meeting or two at the Dixon Halls in Govanhill.
I think I'm correct in saying that Mhairi also has a role as office manager in Nicola Sturgeon's parliamentary office which is located in the First Minister's Glasgow Southside constituency.
So back to what Mhairi said on Sunday about the Council's 'unfit for purpose' WPBR pay scheme via a local Glasgow TV programme, Full Scottish.
Mhairi's words are unequivocal and unambiguous- the City Council completely accepts that its WPBR pay scheme is discriminatory, a view which helpfully chimes with that of the Court of Session, the highest civil court in Scotland.
The only problem is that this is not the stance that has been adopted by the council's senior officials in 8 months of equal pay settlement 'negotiations' which have been taking place since the start of 2018.
Nor it it likely to the the position of the Council when all the outstanding equal pay cases go back to the Glasgow Employment Tribunal on 25 September, if 8 long months of unproductive settlement 'negotiations' are anything to go by.
So who has got it right - who is speaking plainly and who is speaking with a forked tongue?
What is Glasgow City Council's position when it comes to the WPBR - does the Council accept unequivocally that the scheme is discriminatory?
I think that claimants are entitled to ask this question of the Council Leader, Susan Aitken, and for the avoidance of doubt the Council's chief executive, Annemarie O'Donnell, as well.
If you'd like to email a question along the following lines to Susan Aitken and Annemarie O'Donnell, their respective email addresses are shown below.
Dear Susan/ Dear Annemarie
Glasgow's WPBR Pay Scheme
Can you please confirm that Glasgow City Council accepts the judgment of the Court of Session that the WPBR is 'unfit for purpose' and that the scheme discriminates against the Council's largely female workforce?"
Yours sincerely
A Glasgow Equal Pay Claimant
Susan Aitken's email address
Susan.Aitken@glasgow.gov.uk
Annemarie O'Donnell's email address:
annemarie.odonnell@ced.glasgow.gov.uk
By the way, Mhairi Hunter's full interview can be viewed via the link below to the Full Scottish and her comments on equal pay are about 6 minutes in.
EQUAL PAY
Equal Pay Glasgow: Trade union boss warns city council could go 'bankrupt' over £250m new claims
A trade union boss has warned that Glasgow city council could effectively become bankrupt over £250m worth of new equal pay claims.
Gary Smith, who leads the GMB in Scotland, said a fresh round of claims would be submitted by female workers months after an initial £500m settlement was secured.
He said he feared Glasgow could become like a US city that famously went bust: "It could be Detroit without the soundtrack."
However, SNP council leader Susan Aitken hit back yesterday: “These are nonsense figures, plucked from thin air – and it is worth remembering that pretty much every single prediction anyone has ever made about this has been wrong."
Susan Aitken: Glasgow equal pay campaigners deserved and earned every penny
Earlier this year, the city council appeared to end a long-running dispute with thousands of female staff who had been paid less than men on the same grade.
The council challenged the claims for years before the incoming SNP administration changed tacked and settled.
The local authority’s strategy for meeting the £500m bill was for a council spin-off firm to take a loan out against the city’s publicly-owned buildings. Women are in line for an average payment of £35,000.
However, the disputed pay structure is still in place and the GMB, which represents many of the staff, is helping female workers put in a new wave of claims.
Smith’s GMB union was criticised in previous years for not doing enough to help the female workers, but his appointment in 2015 led to a rethink and his colleagues have since vigorously represented the women.
READ MORE: Thousands of women having chunks of equal pay award taken away to settle council tax debts
Speaking to our sister publication, the Herald on Sunday, Smith said the £500m may only be the beginning for the council:
“The women are still being discriminated against in Glasgow because there is not a new pay and grading structure in place. For every second these women are at work they are losing out.
“As new people are employed by the council, as soon as they start, many of them are going to have claims against the council as well. The council is paying out £500-plus million, and it is immediately racking up the credit card bill again.”
He put a figure on what the new bill may come to: “By 2021 the city council will need to find at least another £250 million to fully settle its historic sex discrimination against its employees and it will need to implement a new job evaluation system to address that discrimination once and for all.”
Smith is worried that Glasgow may fail to pay its bills: “I don’t know, in real terms, if cities can go bankrupt in the UK, but to all intents and purposes Glasgow is going to run out of money. If you want to call that bankruptcy, fine.
"At some point, the Scottish Government is going to have to step in. You cannot keep remortgaging all the buildings in Glasgow. You can’t keep cutting services."
“There is a precedent for cities going bust elsewhere in the world. I don’t think you can let Scotland’s biggest city go bankrupt, but something has got to be done to reverse the decline of Glasgow and, once and for all, sort out the debts.”
The SNP currently runs the council, but Smith says the political blame predates Nationalist control: “You have got an administration now that is dealing with generations of mismanagement. You cannot heap all the blame on the current political administration, but there is no easy way out of this.”
However, he is angry that council officials who he regards as responsible for past mistakes are still in post.
“On the face of it, it feels like the people who were there when we got into this mess are still there now. And that is pretty staggering,” he said.
Aitken added: “Until we implement a new pay scheme, there will be further equal pay claims to settle. Everybody knows that – it was in the paper we took to committee. We are factoring this into our funding strategy. However, the claims will be smaller in number and they will also cover a far shorter period.”
Breaking News: Stefan Cross is not a 'thin air plucker' (24/08/188)
Stefan Cross is not a 'thin air plucker' or even a 'thin air plucker's son' despite what Susan Aitken had to say on yesterday's Good Morning Scotland radio programme.
Councillor Aitken accused Stefan Cross QC of plucking a figure of £500 million out of 'thin air' as the potential cost of settling around 12,500 outstanding equal pay claims with Glasgow City Council.
Yet as someone who has worked very closely with Stefan and Action 4 Equality Scotland during the long fight for equal pay, I can confirm that Stefan is a real 'stickler' for detail who does not make exaggerated claims and knows what he is taking about.
So it came as no surprise that the Glasgow City Council leader was forced into reverse gear PDQ (Pretty Damn Quick) in a later interview for the BBC's Reporting Scotland programme in which Susan herself conceded that the final bill in Glasgow will run to 'hundreds of millions of pounds'.
The even better news is that Stefan has his 'right of reply' in this morning's Good Morning Scotland programme at around 8.15 am, so tune in this morning and hear what Stefan has to say.
In the meantime, here's a YouTube recording of Susan's unfortunate comments from Thursday and if you ask me the best thing to do now is for Susan Aitken to invite Stefan Cross for a friendly, if businesslike, chat over a nice cup of tea.
Because a little more listening and a little more respect towards the claimants (and their representatives) would do Glasgow's equal pay settlement talks the world of good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HaR015hgiw
Susan Aitken - SNP Leader of Glasgow City Council. Interviewed by Gillian Marles on BBC GMS radio discussing the impact historic equal pay claims (dating back to a Job Evaluation Scheme introduced in 2006 under the previous Labour administration) may have on Glasgow City Council
Stefan Cross
"Apparently I ‘plucked figures out of the air’ - this is a lie and defamatory
"Our figures are clearly calculated
"But judge for yourself whose telling the truth"
Glasgow - Setting the Record Straight (24/08/19)
The GMB union steps into the row over the likely costs of resolving the long-running equal pay dispute in Glasgow City Council.
Stefan and his team have put countless hours into calculations - outstripping anything the Council has produced. Outrageous thing for @SusaninLangside to have said.
@SusaninLangside on good morning Scotland you accused me of “plucking figures out of the air”. Untrue.We’ve given GCC detailed calcs. You might not agree with them but theyre not “plucked out of the air” For a settlement you need me. Defaming me not helpful. Apology please
Who Speaks for Glasgow? (28/08/18)
Here's an interesting statement that just might have a significant impact on the fight for equal pay in Glasgow City Council.
"The whole issue arose out of the fact that the (WPBR) pay and grading scheme the Council has, has been found to discriminate against women, and we completely accept that it does."
Now these words were spoken by Cllr Mhairi Hunter whom I have met previously to discuss Glasgow's equal pay dispute and who has accompanied Council Leader, Susan Aitken, to an equal pay meeting or two at the Dixon Halls in Govanhill.
I think I'm correct in saying that Mhairi also has a role as office manager in Nicola Sturgeon's parliamentary office which is located in the First Minister's Glasgow Southside constituency.
So back to what Mhairi said on Sunday about the Council's 'unfit for purpose' WPBR pay scheme via a local Glasgow TV programme, Full Scottish.
Mhairi's words are unequivocal and unambiguous- the City Council completely accepts that its WPBR pay scheme is discriminatory, a view which helpfully chimes with that of the Court of Session, the highest civil court in Scotland.
The only problem is that this is not the stance that has been adopted by the council's senior officials in 8 months of equal pay settlement 'negotiations' which have been taking place since the start of 2018.
Nor it it likely to the the position of the Council when all the outstanding equal pay cases go back to the Glasgow Employment Tribunal on 25 September, if 8 long months of unproductive settlement 'negotiations' are anything to go by.
So who has got it right - who is speaking plainly and who is speaking with a forked tongue?
What is Glasgow City Council's position when it comes to the WPBR - does the Council accept unequivocally that the scheme is discriminatory?
I think that claimants are entitled to ask this question of the Council Leader, Susan Aitken, and for the avoidance of doubt the Council's chief executive, Annemarie O'Donnell, as well.
If you'd like to email a question along the following lines to Susan Aitken and Annemarie O'Donnell, their respective email addresses are shown below.
Dear Susan/ Dear Annemarie
Glasgow's WPBR Pay Scheme
Can you please confirm that Glasgow City Council accepts the judgment of the Court of Session that the WPBR is 'unfit for purpose' and that the scheme discriminates against the Council's largely female workforce?"
Yours sincerely
A Glasgow Equal Pay Claimant
Susan Aitken's email address
Susan.Aitken@glasgow.gov.uk
Annemarie O'Donnell's email address:
annemarie.odonnell@ced.glasgow.gov.uk
By the way, Mhairi Hunter's full interview can be viewed via the link below to the Full Scottish and her comments on equal pay are about 6 minutes in.
