Bare Cupboards, Equal Pay and the SNP
The scene from George Square. pic.twitter.com/hVOuaGC8DW
— Brian Spella (@BrianSpanner1) September 30, 2022
SNP ministers insisted 'the cupboard is bare' over council workers pay - until the council workers started to strike and more money suddenly became available.
"We've reached the bottom of the pot" - is not a realistic solution to Glasgow's long running equal pay dispute.
Glasgow City Council's leader says "we've reached the bottom of our pot" after plans were announced for a sale-and-lease-back plan to raise £200million using Kelvingrove Museum, the City Chambers, GoMA and Kelvin Hall. #HeartNews pic.twitter.com/Z3NXyWwRJB
— Heart Scotland News (@HeartScotNews) September 29, 2022
Glasgow's Fight For Equal Pay (September 30, 2022)
So the latest news from Glasgow is that the City Council is effectively raising a mortgage on some of our best known buildings to pay for its ongoing obligations on equal pay.
Yet the Council is doing so without any help from Scottish Ministers whose public spending watchdog (Accounts Commission) concluded that SNP Ministers and local government both shared responsibility for the 'decade long failure of leadership over equal pay' between 2007-2017.
And SNP ministers, as everyone knows, have been cutting the budgets of Scotland's local councils for years!
Glasgow's Fight For Equal Pay (August 12, 2022)
SNP, Glasgow and 'Rocking the Boat' (April 03, 2022)
Glasgow City Council faces another huge £250 million bill to finance yet another 'interim payment' in its long-running equal pay dispute - which is on top of the £500 million paid out in 2019.
The final bill is likely to top £1 billion before the City Council finally replaces its discriminatory WPBR pay arrangements which were condemned as 'unfit for purpose' by the Court of Session, Scotland's highest civil court as far back as 2017.
Now in 2017 Scotland's public spending watchdog, the Accounts Commission, concluded that Scottish Ministers were responsible for this 'decade long failure of leadership' over equal pay along with local councils like Glasgow.
So why is the SNP leader of Scotland's largest council so reluctant to bang on the door of the Scottish Government to ask for help in finding a way out of this awful mess - is there a reason local politicians are afraid to rock the boat?
Because it's unfair for the burden to be falling entirely on council tax payers in Glasgow.