Mark Irvine

Empty promises and equal pay

Action4Equality's Mark Irvine slams an unfair system and trade union conivance in it

Hands up, who supports equal pay? Everyone does, don’t they, because Scotland has come a long way since women worked just for ‘pin money’.

But, if this is true, why are so many women workers still paid so much less than male colleagues? Especially when women have had the law on their side – the 1970 Equal Pay Act – for almost 40 years? The answer is that employers and trade unions have turned a blind eye to widespread pay discrimination for years. This explains why council carers - with highly demanding and responsible jobs - earn less than relatively unskilled male jobs, such as refuse workers and road sweepers.

Whatever they say about an unshakeable commitment to equality, the big public sector employers have been quietly defending the indefensible for years – and the trade unions have been happy to look the other way. In 1999, Scotland’s local councils and trade unions signed an historic equal pay agreement. The proposed new system was intended to pay all workers fairly – regardless of gender, on the basis of real skills and responsibilities – recognising that old, outdated employer/union agreements undervalued and underpaid many predominantly female jobs.

A new approach required non-discriminatory job evaluation schemes - that assessed and scored jobs relative to one another - to produce a fair and logical set of grades and rates of pay - across the entire workforce. But what actually happened was nothing - for six long years. Then Action 4 Equality and Stefan Cross came along - let the cat out the bag by highlighting the big pay differences between male and female jobs – and explaining how to fight back. Overnight, thousands of women workers started submitting equal pay claims – using the courts to get redress.

Collective bargaining had betrayed the very people it was supposed to serve. Predictably, the employers blamed the trade unions and the unions blamed the employers – even though both sides knew exactly what they were signing for at the time. Worse followed. Instead of being honest and acting with integrity, the unions collaborated with employers to keep their women members in the dark – ignored the huge and ongoing pay gap. This duplicity has led to thousands of low paid women workers suing their own trade unions for the lack of proper legal advice and professional support.

Pay discrimination is also rife in Scotland’s NHS. Again the employers and trade unions came up with a similar solution – Agenda for Change – a new grading system, which has been sold as dealing with equal pay, but is nothing of the sort. Instead, Agenda for Change is a mechanism for protecting men's pay and avoiding equal pay claims. NHS pay structures are completely crazy. The equal pay gap has been widely known to employers and unions - since 1997 at least - when large-scale claims were first made in Cumbria.

Cumbria’s claims established that nursing assistants did jobs of equal value to male maintenance workers, but the men were being paid £4,000 more than the (largely female) nurses. Likewise, fully trained and highly qualified nurses earned less than male electronics technicians - medical secretaries less then male painters and joiners. Even senior nurses - with years of specialist training - were paid less than junior maintenance managers. So the people looking after property were paid more than those caring for patients!

Recent events have shown unions up in their true colours. Unions like to portray themselves as champions of equal pay, but collective bargaining has let women workers down – big time. The difference is that people now have a choice – they don’t need to stay trapped inside the secret world of employer/union agreements – a kind of industrial relations ‘black hole’. That’s why so many are prepared to hold the unions to account – and consider other solutions to their problems.
Scotland’s unions have lost the plot on equal pay. Women workers have been betrayed by a tribal male culture, driven by windy rhetoric, wedded to one political party, compromised and ultimately paralysed by its own vested interests.

For the latest news on equal pay visit the Action4Equality website www.action4equalityscotland.blogspot.com

Comments

[pat]

hi in falkirk we sent this money to stefan cross but we all got it back you should contact stefan cross and ask for it back as it was a mistake to ask for it it the first place.or contact mark irvine.

[anne campbell]

hi pat as you know i no longer work with the council as a senior but i have still my eaqual pay claim going not being in the concils clutches anymore im losing track of whats happening i know you have been regraded and are due back money for that but the letters you have received [about regrading] is confusing me!what i want to confirm is,are we all getting offers for eaqual pay in september?
anne

[pat]

Hi Anne the gradeing has nothing to do with your equal pay claim. this was the single status that came in dec, 2006.as for your equal pay settlement hopefully it will be in september the unions have settled for 70 percent of what people are owed and say that stefan cross clients will be paid out first .but [last week] according to mark irvine they are still ironing things out [which to me sounds as if stefan cross is trying for more ive emailed mark no reply as yet.

[anne campbell]

hi pat many thanks we will just have to see what happens
you know i will miss this when its all sorted
anne

[pat]

Hi Anne just got email from mark to say that details are still being hammered out with the council as soon as he knows letters will be sent out and it will be put on the web page[so definately cant be settling for same as union].

[liz]

hi i work for north lanarkshire council anyone got any news on settlements for us a read the bit on the blog about thecouncil withdrawing av heard alsorts of things dinner ladys payed out cleaners payed out but nothing about carers getting payed out

[Shirley Beattie]

Hi Liz I also work for North Lanarkshire .I have also heard that the catering staff got paid out but nothing for the carers yet

[anne campbell]

hi pat just back from my hols and got the letter from stefan cross i thought we were getting offers out this month but according to the letter its not likely?

[pat]

hi anne what letter are you talking about and when did you get it.

[anne campbell]

ji pat just got it when i came b ack yesterday its realy nothing to do with me now as i am not with the council any more its dated august 21 and headedsingle status grading appeal

anne

[k.galloway]

any knews on eastrenfrewshire yet heard nothing for years

[mary smith]

hi All, has anyone any news Regards West Lothian mary smith

[june tierney]

hi mary, i'm afraid we are all in the dark with regards to what is happening in west lothian. all has been very quiet recently, everyone is waiting with baited breath to see the outcome of falkirks fight, then hopefully things will start moving a bit quicker.I know how you feel though there seems to be no end to this matter but i have no doubt that there is a lot goes on behind the scenes that we don't hear about.

[pat]

hi june ,stefan cross is still talking to falkirk council mark says [the devil is in the detail ].nice to read you on the blog again.

[ANNE CAMPBELL]

HI PAT HAVE RECEIVED THE LETTER THIS MORNING AND READ THE BLOG HOW MUCH LONGER IS THIS FARCE GOING TO CONTINUE? THE COUNCILS ARE TAKING THE CRAP BIG TIME!!! ITS TIME EVERYBODY GOT TOGETHER IN MADE OURSELFS HEARD OUTSIDE THE SCOTTISH PARLIMENT BECAUSE NOBODY IS GIVING A MONKEYS!! THE PAPERS WONT EVEN REPORT ON IT IM GAME FOR IT IS ANYBODY ELSE??[AS LONG AS ITS A MONDAY] BUT IT WOULD TAKE A LOT IF PEOPLE TO GET US NOTICED AND THE MEDIA INVOLVED ANNE

[pat]

hi anne,ill just go with the flow.i think they will crack soon .if you notice the date on the letter for cmd and the date on the web page are different one says 4/11 09 [thats the letter] the web says the 18/11/09 the 18/11 is the right one this is because the original date when the letters were made up was the 4/11 but the council asked the tribunal for a postponement untill the 18/11.they are looking at stefan cross alternative proposals put forward.but if you want to organise this then go ahead good luck.

[watch smallville Episodes]

I loved the type ad commenting system very clean and very efficient.

Love to read more from you on the topic above

[agnes mckinnon]

hi all came across your comments been there done that got the teeshirt i work with nac as a catering assistant we have about 40 employees that i am in touch with that is going down the stefan cross road it has been a long haul but as iv always said id have spent any money id accepted long since no saying a couldny be dain wi the money but hang in there all good things come to those who waite good luck to all council employees in scotland x

[Liz]

I have a friend who is going through the union with their claim and they had recieved a letter saying that there was a meeting on the 4th of Nov and it was to settle the on going claims and that we would get our claims settled for the end of Nov but i havent heard anything yet,has anyone else heard anything yet?

[june]

you don't say which council you work for liz

[pat]

hi liz if it was the falkirk council case management disussion on the 4/11 it was postponed by falkirk council and a new date was set for the 18/11 at the tribunal office in glasgow this was to give the council more time to get orginised.

[june]

Hi Pat, how did things go in glasgow yesterday,or have you not had a decision yet.

[pat]

hi june havent heard anything yet ill email mark tomorrow monday to see if he knows nice to hear from you.

[pat]

falkirk we are on the web page nothing much to say another cmd hearing for 22/12 hey ho;