Single Status: from the Socialist

The following article is nicked from The Socialist, weekly newspaper of the Socialist party, one of the two successor organisations to the Militant Tendency.

Mikey

TRIBUNAL RULING MEANS FURTHER PROBLEMS FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT’S SINGLE STATUS AGREEMENT


An Employment Tribunal ruling on equal pay has panicked both employers and trade union leaders throughout local government. But it is a trade union, in this case the GMB, that has been found guilty of discrimination and victimisation on gender lines against its own members!
The decision, on behalf of low-paid women workers in Middlesbrough, which will be appealed, may, according to press reports, cost the GMB £1 million.
Unison activists in the Socialist Party examine the implications and pitfalls that unions face.
Paralysis
The ruling, which runs to 140 pages, and incidentally shows the employment tribunal panel were not intrinsically ‘anti-union’, has sent shockwaves through local government.
The fear of the wider implications of the ruling, and concerns at the prospects in similar cases being brought against them has given rise to an awed paralysis at the tops of the other unions. Whilst the case was against the GMB the tribunal’s full rulings does not cast these ‘other unions’ in a better light.
Mass Privatisation
Many local authority leaders are threatening wholesale privatisation of services as a consequence. Whatever happens in the future, it is now widely accepted that the Single Status Agreement is under severe strain, and privately union officials are often heard making statements to the effect that local authorities cannot afford to pay equal pay, so that mass privatisation is inevitable. Collective bargaining in what is currently the largest trade union organised sector of the British economy may well be at risk.
Single Status
Single Status, in existence since 1997, seeks to bring together Manual and Non-Manual workers, previously covered by separate agreements, under one agreement. Whilst this aim has the support of all socialists, the manner in which it attempts to do this was opposed by Socialist Party members in UNISON at the time. They played a key role via the Campaign for a Fighting Democratic UNISON (CFDU) in leading opposition to the Agreement.
Single Status does not seek to combine the strengths of the old agreements into a new one, but rather jettisons key elements of these agreements such as national gradings, overtime payments, weekend and evening pay rates, taking them out of the national agreement and leaving them to be defended (or not) on a branch by branch basis. Wild promises were made by the union bureaucracies to persuade members to accept the Agreement. They saw it a panacea – an answer to unequal pay for women members and, also wrongly, an answer to low pay.
In practice its implementation has been characterised by cuts in pay and conditions of service and a rash of localised disputes (Coventry, Hull and elsewhere). UNISON’s bureaucracy were so incensed at the CFDU’s campaign against Single Status that they launched a ferocious political witch hunt against CFDU supporters, which was extended to others on the left. The history since 1997, and in particular these recent events, clearly demonstrates how correct the Socialist Party and others on the left were to oppose Single Status.
Job Evaluation
The Middlesbrough Tribunal ruling revolves around the implementation of Job Evaluation (JE). This is a complicated procedure by which each job is evaluated and given a number of points, after which a new grading structure for each authority is determined, replacing the old mixed system of national gradings, and national grades applied on a locally determined basis. The JE scheme is intrinsic to the Agreement. It is allegedly Equal Value Based meaning it has been structured to overcome clearly recognised discriminatory pay anomalies amongst occupations traditionally worked by women, such as home and other carer posts in comparison to those, such as road-workers, who are predominantly male.
A large percentage of the workforce is in clerical and administrative posts. Whilst low pay is endemic in local government, many white-collar workers have traditionally benefited from higher comparative wages to those sections of the manual workforce where women predominate. With no extra funding, councils have sought to tackle unequal pay not by increasing substantially the wages of these ‘former manual workers’ but by seeking to effectively lower the pay of others. Many women in clerical and admin jobs suffer from JE and face pay cuts, a reflection of the lack of familiarity of the bureaucracy with the nature of the membership as a whole. For them women members are nearly all perceived as carers, so they have been catered for in the scheme. The vast majority of women members, low paid clerical workers, have been ignored, and are now suffering.
JE poses a host of problems to local negotiators;
Protection for members whose posts are downgraded
Payment of back pay for members whose posts are regraded as a result of the exercise (and in particular where JE identifies gender-based discrimination)
Establishing future pay grades
The most contentious point, according to law, is that bonus schemes, predominantly appearing in male-dominated workgroups, hinder equal pay. Astonishingly, in the unions’ advice to members in 1998 was the statement "Existing local bonus schemes and bonus arrangements are local agreements and therefore not affected by this agreement". Even then, this was a legally ‘dodgy’ argument to say the least!
As the ruling clearly demonstrates, and has been known for some time, the existence of such schemes, which can account for 40-50% of workers’ take-home pay, is discriminatory. Union negotiators, whilst trying to keep to the correct principle of ‘no losers’ cannot argue for continued protection for existing workers on bonus schemes, if it can be proved that this continuation also continues the discriminatory element.
Despite the 6-year protection in the Health Service under Agenda for Change, local government negotiators have been warned not to seek more than 2 years for protection for workers losing their bonus schemes.
Post-JE negotiations inevitably focus on these elements, along with attempting to defend the conditions of service which have been removed from national pay bargaining provisions. (The 2004 local government pay settlement, which the Socialist Party campaigned against, has worsened the situation with even more elements moved from the national bargaining arena to a local level). Single Status almost inevitably raises the wages bill of each council, and the Government has refused to give councils extra funding to meet these commitments.
The scene is set for major conflicts. Prior to Single Status Councils were being hit on a weekly basis with a series of equal pay rulings at the Employment Tribunal. They signed the Single Status Agreement in an attempt to take this pressure off, but have done nothing in the meantime to increase funding to pay for the costs of rectifying equal pay anomalies.
No Win No Fee Lawyers
Into this scenario stepped No Win No Fee lawyers, seizing their chance to make money. Under anti-discrimination law anybody found to have suffered gender-based pay discrimination can expect to get six years back pay. In a number of instances agreements have been reached which give discriminated-against workers less than six years back pay, but which involve better protection for downgraded workers, and/or a better grading structure than might otherwise be expected. On the basis that the discrimination element is the only element that can be pursued at the Employment Tribunal, ET cases can be lodged against the employer and the union, which in the case of Middlesbrough have been upheld.
Thus in future no local negotiators will feel able to settle with less than six years back pay for discriminated against groups, and employers will refuse or severely limit what is available to protect downgraded posts, and will insist on lower grades in the overall structure. The estimated costs of such protection are behind the mood of panic in local authorities, and the wild threats of privatisation.
Poor Performance
The ET ruling suggests the performance of the GMB and by implication, other unions, in the Middlesbrough case has been particularly poor, having all the hallmarks of unions, led not by members but by bureaucracy. The Tribunal makes some damning comments about the GMB’s handling of the situation, and the ET accuses the union of being less than honest with its members, and scaring them into agreeing the package with threats of privatisation.
The Tribunal also highlights the role of a trade union bureaucracy in the collective bargaining process as "selling a line" on an agreement, (as opposed to explaining its full implications so that the members can make an informed choice on it). The prospect of providing full, transparent and honest information to members before they decide whether or not to accept any proposed agreements will worry many trade union bureaucracies!
Yet the Tribunal ruling opens the door to this kind of approach by indicating that if the women in Middlesbrough had been informed they could expect higher back pay from a tribunal case, been given a realistic assessment of their chances of success with such a case and the reasons why they were being recommended to accept less than six years back pay, (in terms of better protection for downgraded colleagues and/or a better grading structure), the union could have defended itself against the allegation of discrimination.
Threats
Local authority trade unionists need to determine how to proceed given the ramifications of the Middlesbrough ruling, clearly distinguishing between the best interests of their members and the doom and gloom sounds of panic emanating from the national bureaucracies of their unions.
Whilst under New Labour the threat of privatisation of all public services is an ever-present aim such moves, in order to dodge the costs of implementing the Single Status Agreement will not be as simple as is now being suggested. Under law workers transferred to a different employer have their full Contracts of Employment, including collective agreements, transferred with them. Few private employers would be willing to take over a group of workers in the knowledge that they would have to pay them six years back pay. Conversely there would be little point in the local authorities paying them the back pay and then privatising the services.
It must also be born in mind that in Middlesbrough, despite the threats of doom if the Single Status package was not accepted, and the subsequent ET ruling, no affected services have been privatised, and the council has found the money to fund the back pay! At the risk of complacency it does appear that too much weight was placed on the council’s pleading of poverty. In fact, the ruling criticises the unions for not demanding the council use ‘other resources’ rather than their pay budget, to fund equal pay.
Divisive and Reactionary
As trade unionists see the chickens come home to roost on the Single Status Agreement, and witness undemocratic, poor performing union bureaucrats get a kick in the pants from the Employment Tribunal, a wry smile or two from them is understandable. But the overall effect of the intervention of lawyers into the collective bargaining arena in this way is dangerous.
All workers are entitled to a decent deal at work, and not just those who are able to pursue their cases at law (an extremely limited right under capitalism). Rulings such as this, which undermine collective bargaining in the workplace, are ultimately reactionary and divisive. To move to a situation where the worker with the best lawyer gets the best deal would leave million of workers with no adequate protection or representation at all, and moves away from the important principle of the collective approach that is intrinsic to trade unionism itself.
No Win No Fee -v- No Fight No Win!
The problems illustrated by the Middlesbrough ruling are inherent in the Single Status Agreement itself, which held out the illusion to over a million local government workers that their pay and grading problems at work, including historic problems of discriminatory pay, could be solved without a fight.
This ruling illustrates that relying solely on legal means will not provide an answer to either equal pay or low pay. History has taught us that it is only through struggle will workers achieve an end to such discrimination and exploitation.
As the Single Status Agreement continues to unravel, workers are increasingly left with the stark fact that despite the rash promises of the union bureaucracies when Single Status was introduced, there are no easy ways to sort out their pay and grading problems, and they will have to be prepared to fight for fair treatment at work. Local authorities must be told now that threats of privatisation and cuts in pay and jobs will be met by industrial action.
The New Labour Government should understand that they must ensure that local government is adequately funded if it is not to develop into the kind of battleground that the national Health Service is currently becoming, where massive job losses are announced on a daily basis…and public support for the Government collapses as a result.