Glasgow - Equal Pay Update



Glasgow City Council was resoundingly defeated in the Court of Session, Scotland's highest civil court, on three separate occasions during 2017.
  • Over 'Pay Protection' - the Court of Session found that the City Council failed to protect the interests of female dominated jobs (the majority of the workforce) following the introduction of a new JES (Job Evaluation Scheme and new pay arrangements in 2006/07.
  • Over the 'WPBR' - the Court of Session found that the City Council's new JES and new pay arrangements (known locally as the Workforce Pay and Benefits Review) were discriminatory, unlawful and 'unfit for purpose'. 
  • Over an application seeking 'leave to appeal' the WPBR judgment to the UK Supreme Court - the Court of Session decided that the City Council had no case and rejected all of their grounds of appeal 
  • All three decisions of the Court of Session were unanimous.
So the questions that I will be putting to my own local MSP and MP in Glasgow are:
  1. Do you support the decisions of the Court of Session?
  2. Do you agree that Glasgow City Council should accept the judgment of the Court of Session - and drop any further appeal to the UK Supreme Court in London? 
  3. If so, what are you doing to support your local constituents in the ongoing fight for equal pay in Glasgow which has reached a critical moment?
I hope that claimants in Glasgow will adapt the information in this post and use it to raise the same issues with their local MSPs and MPs - I will share my letters on the blog. 

 And to help people do just that - here's a handy list of their contact email addresses.

Glasgow Constituency MSPs (Scottish Parliament)

Glasgow List MSPs


Glasgow MPs (Westminster Parliament)

  

Glasgow - Equal Pay Update (10/01/18)



I think it's safe to say there was no big breakthrough at the first equal pay meeting of 2018 with Glasgow City Council, otherwise everyone would have been shouting from the rooftops of the City Chambers.

So the settlement process continues and further meetings are in the diary, but the elephant in the room is the issue of whether Scotland's largest council now accepts the judgement of Scotland's highest civil court, the Court of Session, that Glasgow's discredited WPBR pay scheme really is 'unfit for purpose'.

If so, the City Council needs to take 'off the table' the possibility of a further appeal to the UK Supreme Court in London because settlement discussions can only get down to the business of serious negotiations if this threat is removed.

I think this is a very fair point to raise directly with Glasgow's MSPs and MPs including the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, especially as the deadline for any appeal is just one week away, i.e. next Wednesday 17 January 2018. 

I have been raising the issue with MSPs and MPs in recent weeks, but the time is now right for individual claimants across Glasgow to make their voices heard.

The best way to do this would be for people to contact their local MSPs and MPs to ask their views on this subject and what they are doing to support their local constituents - by email, Facebook and Twitter.

I will post some thoughts on the blog site to help people get their point across, but Glasgow's politicians know what's going on for the past 10 years and if you ask me it's high time they stood up and spoke out.

More to follow - so spread the word far and wide, encourage your friends and co-workers to get involved and watch this space.

  

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