Glasgow - Voting With Your Feet
I received this response from a reader in Glasgow after yesterday's post about the ridiculous antics the GMB union.
I was GMB but I'm not now x
J
Glasgow Equal Pay News (02/10/17)
A regular reader sent me this comment from an ex-GMB member who is pretty cheesed off with her former trade union.
Well was talking to one of my colleagues on Saturday and she attended the GMB meeting last week, and she was told by GMB that they where going back 10yrs and they were fighting for 2nd wave
😂😂
Now being an ex GMB member, I told her to tell them to put it in writing !!!
Now being an ex GMB member, I told her to tell them to put it in writing !!!
Then she will have proof!
Also she (GMB rep) said they where going to take legal action against Digby Brown the lawyer ?
There was 5 attended meeting
Also she (GMB rep) said they where going to take legal action against Digby Brown the lawyer ?
There was 5 attended meeting
2 cordia workers
And 3 catering staff ...
And 3 catering staff ...
Have the people lost faith in GMB - 💯
I'm not surprised I have to say because the GMB agreed to the introduction of Glasgow's WPBR pay scheme back in 2007 which cheated low paid workers of their right to 'equal pay for work of equal value' with their male colleagues.
The GMB was not part of the A4ES led challenge to the WPBR pay scheme in the Court of Session which concluded unanimously that Glasgow's pay arrangements are 'not fit for purpose'.
Nor is the GMB involved in the latest battle to resist Glasgow's attempts to seek leave to appeal this decision to the UK Supreme Court because the union was not involved in the original hearing at the Court of Session.
Now all of this is because the GMB decided to restrict its members equal pay claims in Glasgow to the 3-year protection period, without consulting their members of course, which means that many of them have lost out big time.
And while the GMB says it is trying to recover the situation, the very same thing happened in North Lanarkshire Council more than two years ago, yet the union went on to make the same mistakes again in Glasgow in 2017, blaming its lawyers Digby Brown for the debacle, albeit without any proper explanation to union members.
So if I were a GMB member in Glasgow, I'd be asking the union to answer these important questions in writing and in the absence of a convincing explanation, I would be inclined to take my business elsewhere.
GMB members Glasgow must be wondering if history is repeating itself over the terrible mishandling of their equal pay claims against the City Council.
Because the issue of the GMB restricting its members claims to only three years first came to light in North Lanarkshire Council back in 2015 and the union's new regional secretary, Gary Smith, promised to launch a full investigation into exactly what went wrong.
Since then nothing further has been said publicly at least and there's no sign of the union sharing with its members the 'complete assessment of the legal strategy pursued by Digby Brown'.
Bute surely if the GMB believes Digby Brown to have been at fault, the union should be demanding that their former lawyers compensate those who have lost out.
On the other hand if the GMB itself is found to have 'dropped the ball', surely the union has an obligation to put things right.
A kind reader has passed on to me details of a letter from the GMB to union members in North Lanarkshire - the following two paragraphs caught my attention immediately:
"I (Gary Smith) have launched a full investigation into the North Lanarkshire case and a complete assessment of the legal strategy pursued by Digby Brown in relation to our equal pay cases in all of Scotland. If claims need to be amended, they will be, and if we have received the wrong advice we will take action to protect our members' position.
"In the meantime, if you are a GMB member and you have a case with Digby Brown, we will be happy to transfer it to a different firm if you are unhappy with the current placement. Please contact our GMB law firm - UnionLine - at pi@unionline.co.uk or call them on 0300 333 0303, If you would like us to relocate your case. UnionLine is a legal firm owned by the union and operates on a not for profit basis."
Now it seems obvious to me that the GMB must have lost confidence in Digby Brown, but in the recent members' meetings I've attended the GMB explained that a national policy decision was responsible for restricting its members claims to only 3-years.
But now the GMB appears to be blaming Digby Brown although I fail to understand how members can be invited to transfer their equal pay claims elsewhere (to another law firm), without being told, first of all, what has gone wrong in relation to their claims Digby Brown.
So the following questions need an urgent answer, if you ask me:
1 Will the results of the GMB's investigation be shared with union members in North Lanarkshire?
2 Does the GMB now accept that its legal advice was wrong?
3 Will the GMB be sharing this legal advice with the members affected?
4 Will the GMB confirm that settlement proposals were put directly to North Lanarkshire Council by, or on behalf of, the GMB trade union?
The sooner we have an independents complaints procedure for trade unions in the UK the better - because this is a perfect example of the difficulty that ordinary union members often have in holding big union bureaucracies to account.
The GMB's Gary Smith has not been in touch to take up my offer of a meeting to discuss Glasgow City Council's Employment Development Commitment (EDC) scheme which, as regular readers know, ensured special and more favourable treatment to the all male, former bonus earning jobs under the Council's WPBR pay scheme.
Now this may be because at least some of the jobs in question were located in parts of the council where many of the workers were GMB members, represented by GMB union reps - Gravediggers and Gardeners and so on.
I'm pretty sure the GMB was the dominant union amongst City Council Gardeners, for example, so it must be well placed to help get to the bottom of what really went on, especially since council officials say they don't keep such 'good' records.
And I think the same may be true of the City Council's Gravediggers who appear to have had a whopping big bonus of £11,000 a year preserved on a permanent basis by the award of a higher grade under the WPBR and EDC.
But maybe readers in Glasgow can also help with this - some folk must know a Gardener or a Gravedigger who would be willing to help women workers in the City Council get what they deserve in the fight for equal pay.
Also can any GMB members tell me if they have received an individual letter from Gary Smith explaining why their equal pay claims were still restricted in Glasgow - two years after the very same problem came to light in North Lanarkshire Council back in 2015.
If you ask me, the GMB ought to agree to compensate these members, since it's the union and/or its advisers who messed up - not individual GMB members.
As I thought Gary Smith has been badly 'stung' by the post I published yesterday which had some critical words to say about the GMB 's handling of its members equal pay claims in Glasgow.
Perfectly fair, I thought, given the circumstances, but perhaps predictably Gary has lashed out instead of accepting the GMB's responsibility for this terrible mess of its own making.
Here is the GMB's response to what I had to say which is probably the longest email letter I've ever read - a curious cross between a ramble and a rant.
Now I wrote to Gary well over a week ago to suggest that we work together in the interests of all the claimants, but I never received an acknowledgment to my letter never mind a positive response.
Hence my decision to call a 'spade a spade' on the blog site the other day.
So the ball is still in the GMB's court, for example the union could help by explaining exactly how the former bonus earning jobs (Gravediggers, Gardeners etc) received more favourable treatment under the City Council's Employee Development Commitment (EDC) scheme, even though the GMB is not part of the challenge to the Council's JES and WPBR.
At the moment Gary seems unable to 'see the wood for the trees', but maybe that will change and if so, he knows how to get in touch.
In the meantime, here are some facts on the track record of A4ES which is based on getting results, unlike the GMB which has been taking its members' union fees for years while letting them down in the fight for equal pay.
Dear Gary
I'm not surprised I have to say because the GMB agreed to the introduction of Glasgow's WPBR pay scheme back in 2007 which cheated low paid workers of their right to 'equal pay for work of equal value' with their male colleagues.
The GMB was not part of the A4ES led challenge to the WPBR pay scheme in the Court of Session which concluded unanimously that Glasgow's pay arrangements are 'not fit for purpose'.
Nor is the GMB involved in the latest battle to resist Glasgow's attempts to seek leave to appeal this decision to the UK Supreme Court because the union was not involved in the original hearing at the Court of Session.
Now all of this is because the GMB decided to restrict its members equal pay claims in Glasgow to the 3-year protection period, without consulting their members of course, which means that many of them have lost out big time.
And while the GMB says it is trying to recover the situation, the very same thing happened in North Lanarkshire Council more than two years ago, yet the union went on to make the same mistakes again in Glasgow in 2017, blaming its lawyers Digby Brown for the debacle, albeit without any proper explanation to union members.
So if I were a GMB member in Glasgow, I'd be asking the union to answer these important questions in writing and in the absence of a convincing explanation, I would be inclined to take my business elsewhere.
Glasgow - Equal Pay Update (20/09/17)
GMB members Glasgow must be wondering if history is repeating itself over the terrible mishandling of their equal pay claims against the City Council.
Because the issue of the GMB restricting its members claims to only three years first came to light in North Lanarkshire Council back in 2015 and the union's new regional secretary, Gary Smith, promised to launch a full investigation into exactly what went wrong.
Since then nothing further has been said publicly at least and there's no sign of the union sharing with its members the 'complete assessment of the legal strategy pursued by Digby Brown'.
Bute surely if the GMB believes Digby Brown to have been at fault, the union should be demanding that their former lawyers compensate those who have lost out.
On the other hand if the GMB itself is found to have 'dropped the ball', surely the union has an obligation to put things right.
NLC Update (15/10/15)
"I (Gary Smith) have launched a full investigation into the North Lanarkshire case and a complete assessment of the legal strategy pursued by Digby Brown in relation to our equal pay cases in all of Scotland. If claims need to be amended, they will be, and if we have received the wrong advice we will take action to protect our members' position.
"In the meantime, if you are a GMB member and you have a case with Digby Brown, we will be happy to transfer it to a different firm if you are unhappy with the current placement. Please contact our GMB law firm - UnionLine - at pi@unionline.co.uk or call them on 0300 333 0303, If you would like us to relocate your case. UnionLine is a legal firm owned by the union and operates on a not for profit basis."
Now it seems obvious to me that the GMB must have lost confidence in Digby Brown, but in the recent members' meetings I've attended the GMB explained that a national policy decision was responsible for restricting its members claims to only 3-years.
But now the GMB appears to be blaming Digby Brown although I fail to understand how members can be invited to transfer their equal pay claims elsewhere (to another law firm), without being told, first of all, what has gone wrong in relation to their claims Digby Brown.
So the following questions need an urgent answer, if you ask me:
1 Will the results of the GMB's investigation be shared with union members in North Lanarkshire?
2 Does the GMB now accept that its legal advice was wrong?
3 Will the GMB be sharing this legal advice with the members affected?
4 Will the GMB confirm that settlement proposals were put directly to North Lanarkshire Council by, or on behalf of, the GMB trade union?
The sooner we have an independents complaints procedure for trade unions in the UK the better - because this is a perfect example of the difficulty that ordinary union members often have in holding big union bureaucracies to account.
Glasgow - Equal Pay Update
The GMB's Gary Smith has not been in touch to take up my offer of a meeting to discuss Glasgow City Council's Employment Development Commitment (EDC) scheme which, as regular readers know, ensured special and more favourable treatment to the all male, former bonus earning jobs under the Council's WPBR pay scheme.
Now this may be because at least some of the jobs in question were located in parts of the council where many of the workers were GMB members, represented by GMB union reps - Gravediggers and Gardeners and so on.
I'm pretty sure the GMB was the dominant union amongst City Council Gardeners, for example, so it must be well placed to help get to the bottom of what really went on, especially since council officials say they don't keep such 'good' records.
And I think the same may be true of the City Council's Gravediggers who appear to have had a whopping big bonus of £11,000 a year preserved on a permanent basis by the award of a higher grade under the WPBR and EDC.
But maybe readers in Glasgow can also help with this - some folk must know a Gardener or a Gravedigger who would be willing to help women workers in the City Council get what they deserve in the fight for equal pay.
Also can any GMB members tell me if they have received an individual letter from Gary Smith explaining why their equal pay claims were still restricted in Glasgow - two years after the very same problem came to light in North Lanarkshire Council back in 2015.
If you ask me, the GMB ought to agree to compensate these members, since it's the union and/or its advisers who messed up - not individual GMB members.
Glasgow - Equal Pay Update (24/08/17)
As I thought Gary Smith has been badly 'stung' by the post I published yesterday which had some critical words to say about the GMB 's handling of its members equal pay claims in Glasgow.
Perfectly fair, I thought, given the circumstances, but perhaps predictably Gary has lashed out instead of accepting the GMB's responsibility for this terrible mess of its own making.
Here is the GMB's response to what I had to say which is probably the longest email letter I've ever read - a curious cross between a ramble and a rant.
Now I wrote to Gary well over a week ago to suggest that we work together in the interests of all the claimants, but I never received an acknowledgment to my letter never mind a positive response.
Hence my decision to call a 'spade a spade' on the blog site the other day.
So the ball is still in the GMB's court, for example the union could help by explaining exactly how the former bonus earning jobs (Gravediggers, Gardeners etc) received more favourable treatment under the City Council's Employee Development Commitment (EDC) scheme, even though the GMB is not part of the challenge to the Council's JES and WPBR.
At the moment Gary seems unable to 'see the wood for the trees', but maybe that will change and if so, he knows how to get in touch.
In the meantime, here are some facts on the track record of A4ES which is based on getting results, unlike the GMB which has been taking its members' union fees for years while letting them down in the fight for equal pay.
- A4ES is proud of its track record which bears bears repeating
- Without A4ES there would not have been any equal pay settlements in 2005 because up until then the employers and unions kept the workforce in the dark about the big pay differences between male and female jobs
- A4ES clients in Glasgow received much better 1st Wave settlements because A4ES did not agree to a 'cap' of just £9,000 - in a deal with the unions which also excluded lots of groups and compensation over issues such as overtime working
- Without A4ES there would not have been in any challenge to the Pay Protection arrangements in Glasgow since A4ES started the challenge immediately whereas the GMB didn't even begin a challenge until after pay protection finished
- A4ES has led the challenge to Glasgow's WPBR from the outset and now all the GMB are doing is trying to 'jump on the bandwagon' after the victory at the Court Session
- A4ES is not in the least embarrassed by the fact that we charge for services - A4ES is the lowest charging firm in the UK and believes we are worth every penny because of our track record of success.
- GMB members have a simple choice - do you believe an organisation that's been keeping you in the dark and misleading you for 10 years, or A4ES that has been telling people the truth for the past 12 years?
- By the way this is the first time that Gary Smith has acknowledged publicly that the GMB has messed up (again) in Glasgow although there is still no sign of the promised 'investigation' into what went wrong previously in North Lanarkshire - more than two years ago.
Dear Gary
Glasgow and Equal Pay
Yours sincerely
GMB Scotland Secretary
I have had lots to say on my blog site recently about the ongoing fight for equal pay in Glasgow City Council.
My comments regarding the GMB have been quite critical, as you know, and although I believe my criticisms are entirely justified I am also mindful of the fact that you were not actually in Glasgow at the time and, therefore, had no direct responsibility for the behaviour of the local trade unions back in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
Having read your recent comments on the current situation in Glasgow I think it would be to everyone's advantage, if Action 4 Equality Scotland and the local unions (GMB, Unison and Unite) were to work together with the aim of achieving the best possible outcome for the thousands of equal pay claimants we represent.
To my mind the local unions are well placed to help get to the bottom of the City Council's pay protection arrangements which, as you know, treated women workers very differently to their male colleagues, and went way beyond the nationally agreed 3-year protection period as a consequence of the City Council's Employee Development Commitment (EDC).
As the EDC scheme benefited traditional male, former bonus earning jobs I am sure the local unions in Glasgow are in a position to explain exactly what happened in respect of the City Council's Gravediggers, Gardeners and Refuse Workers etc - in other words we don't need to rely on what senior council managers or advisors have to say.
I am confident that this information will come out into the open one way or another, eventually, but the sooner the better as far as I'm concerned and the information will obviously be a great help to all the female claimants.
My suggestion is that we should pool our efforts and increase the pressure on the City Council in the weeks ahead by highlighting how the former bonus earning jobs were given special treatment under the EDC and the council's pay protection arrangements.
If you would like to discuss my proposal in more detail I would be happy to come along to the GMB office at Fountain House or anywhere else you might like to meet. I would attend any meeting on my own though I have no problem with you being accompanied by one of more of your GMB colleagues.
Kind regards
Mark Irvine
Dear GMB Member
That’s why they are currently touting for more GMB members to transfer their claims to A4E. In the blog post of Tuesday 22 August they make two spurious claims which have circulated social media:
• Any GMB members transferring claims to A4ES will have their claims re-registered and will have a new claim started as well, but they may have to consider separate action against the GMB (and/or its lawyers) if they suffer a financial loss because of the GMB's handling of their original claim. The suggestion that A4E can somehow get something for our members which we cannot is simply wrong. We are now taking action to ensure that our members can pursue claims for the maximum amount possible in light of the recent decision in relation to the claims in Glasgow.
• Any GMB members transferring claims to A4ES will have their claims re-registered and will have a new claim started as well, but they may have to consider separate action against the GMB (and/or its lawyers) if they suffer a financial loss because of the GMB's handling of their original claim. The suggestion that A4E can somehow get something for our members which we cannot is simply wrong. We are now taking action to ensure that our members can pursue claims for the maximum amount possible in light of the recent decision in relation to the claims in Glasgow.
I recently received a personal communication from them requesting discussions with me on the future of equal pay claims in Glasgow City Council. The letter from Mark Irvine on behalf of A4E said: “I think it would be to everyone's advantage, if Action 4 Equality Scotland and the local unions (GMB, Unison and Unite) were to work together with the aim of achieving the best possible outcome for the thousands of equal pay claimants we represent.”
I assume here that they are referring to the actions of trade unions in GCC taken on the advice of their legal affiliates at that particular period of time.
Yours sincerely
GMB Scotland Secretary