Paul Sinclair : Equality, yes, but at what cost.
Byline: Paul SinclairSATAN comes to see a lawyer in the middle of the night. He promises he will make him the richest, most famous lawyer in all the world.
Women will fall at his feet and he will enjoy the lifestyle of the most fabulous celebrity.
But at the end of this life, Satan says, the lawyer's soul will belong to him.
The lawyer pauses and thinks for a minute and then says: "Sounds ok...but where's the catch?"
Lawyers are almost as unpopular as politicians and journalists and, in the case of one mob trawling round Scotland, with good reason.
Action 4 Equality are a front for a Newcastle lawyer, Stefan Cross.
They are going round the country trying to sign up low-paid workers and promising to win them riches.
It sounds a noble cause, but there's a catch.
There are many women workers who are paid less by councils than their male counterparts.
In 1999 a number of local authorities signed deals, called Single Status Agreements, to make sure women were paid the same rate for the same job men do.
But there was a snag.
Either male workers lost bonuses to bring them down to the level of women or councils faced a massive hike in the wage bill.
With central government refusing to make up the shortfall that means that today Scottish councils would have to find an extra pounds 500 million if women's wages were raised to the level of men.
So councils and trade unions signed a deal agreeing to pause before the new equality measures were brought in. Since then they have been negotiating local deals, council by council.
Cross and Action 4 Equality are signing up workers and taking councils to tribunals to get them the extra cash now.
The average claim is about fifteen grand a time, with Cross pocketing 10 per cent of every case won.
But here is the real catch. If this happens immediately it will cost jobs. Take Glasgow City Council. They have 38,000 workers. If 7000 went to a tribunal and won that could cost pounds 70 million or a 26 per cent rise in council tax.
If councils all end up in court then, yes, many workers will get payouts - and Cross and his pals will get their ten per cent.
The problem is the workers might also end up on the dole.
Councils will not be able to sustain the level of spending and so there will be more services privatised and more redundancies.
The pay and conditions that workers currently enjoy will have gone.
Union leaders such as Mike Brider at the TGWU and Matt Smith at Unison are trying to negotiate equal pay deals with councils that also ensure their members' long-term futures. The Executive are being put under severe pressure to foot the bill.
But Action 4 Equality is going for a quick hit.
What is even stranger about this mob is that in previous lives their leading lights signed Single Status deals between unions and councils agreeing not to go to court.
Action 4 Equality's frontman in Scotland is Mark Irvine, formerly of Unison. He signed deals on the union's behalf when he worked there . . . before he left with a hefty pay-off.
Cross himself was a Labour councillor in Newcastle and was party to a deal there.
Now they are cashing in by going to court.
Thirty years ago unions were criticised for asking for irresponsible pay rises and not thinking about their own members' long-term interests.
Now that they do negotiate sustainable deals, the private sector jump in to make a fast buck and to hell with workers' futures.
It is a scandal that it has taken so long for women to get equal pay with men.
But when unions are fighting for, and winning, deals for their members it is not right that private individuals make a profit out of equality.
These guys haven't gone into this business out of the goodness of their hearts - it is about them making cash.
South of the border they take up to 25 per cent of any payout.
Women workers have been exploited by employers for too long.
That has to come to an end, but what we don't need is another type of exploitation by the lawyers.
Yes, you can have your day in court - but in years to come you might not be in your job
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| Publication: | Daily Record (Glasgow, Scotland) |
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| Date: | Aug 31, 2005 |
| Words: | 737 |
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