Years of work finally pay off

IT is always hard to admit that you were in the wrong. To accept defeat and accede to the winner’s demands with good grace.

Yet this week Edinburgh City Council finally did so – even if the grace was somewhat absent.

After decades of failing to pay its female staff the same wage as its male employees when they did equal work or work declared to be of equal value, and of turning a blind eye when men’s wages were supplemented by bonuses while women’s were not, after years of shiftily trying to avoid its duty to pay these women their dues and incurring vast legal expenses in the process, of ducking its responsibilities, finally, finally, the council has seen sense and agreed to pay up.

Perhaps it was the thought of the cost of appealing a ruling from the Court of Session (in which it was told to pay) to the Supreme Court in London which finally made council officials wake up and smell the 21st century coffee.

Perhaps it was the potential irony of a council run partly by the SNP asking a London court to back its case – especially as the Supreme Court has been so roundly attacked by Alex Salmond who last year declared it should have “no role” in Scotland’s legal system.

Perhaps officials suddenly rediscovered their consciences over the festive season, what with all the Dickens on the telly, and realised that their Scrooge-like stance in refusing to pay their female staff the salaries they deserved was morally repugnant (the lowest point was the attempt to deny that the council was the employer of these women because they were based in different departments, in different buildings, in different parts of the city).

Perhaps it was that the council’s – female – chief executive had finally been able to think about other things than the tram disaster and was as appalled at her authority’s Neanderthal discrimination of its staff because of their gender.

Perhaps it was the realisation of the ridicule it would face when it lost – again.

Whatever the reason, the fact is that common sense has prevailed and no more of Edinburgh’s council tax will go towards lining the pockets of QCs as they took an unwinnable argument from one court to another in a desperate attempt to find someone, somewhere who agreed with the council’s stance. Instead these women, many of whom have been fighting their case for ten years, will finally get their money. In some cases, possibly as much as £50,000.

Those who fought on their behalf have to be praised – even if in the case of the unions it was grossly hypocritical that they hadn’t been fighting for their female members’s salary rights far sooner, shamed into it in some respects by the success of private legal practices winning such cases south of the border.

However, while the women will now get their backdated money, it doesn’t mean that the equal pay claims are over. And for those who think it’s just a bunch of whinging women who’ve been shouting about discrimination, think again. There are men who are also employed in these jobs – classroom assistants, social care workers and so on – who have also been discriminated against for years.

The council has agreed to pay the women their dues, be they classed as manual or white-collar staff – but the men in these jobs who also missed out are still waiting. Let’s hope these claims are also settled quickly and the council stops dragging its own staff through the courts – and the city’s name through the dirt.

After all as the city’s finance convener Councillor Phil Wheeler said with a distinct lack of grace, the council does have a “responsibility to use public money wisely”. Paying it to its staff for working hard, no matter their gender, seems to me one of the wisest ways it could do so.

But in the meantime, let’s raise a glass to those women who stuck their necks out, challenged their employer and demanded their right to be paid for the work they’ve done and are still doing, demanded to be treated the same as men. Who said feminism was dead?

Slipping standards

MIND you, there’s always one who’s prepared to let the side down. Former Edinburgh University student Roxanne Bell is suing the students’ association because, she alleges, she broke her wrist after slipping on a floor sticky with spilled alcoholic refreshments (which I always thought was the de rigeur look for student union flooring).

Where are her feminist principles? Does she not know what women went through to ensure that she was allowed to be able to fall over in a university drinking den?

Joking aside, no doubt it was incredibly painful but I think she’ll find it hard to convince anyone that it was the fault of the poor bar staff on duty that night for not being quick enough to mop up.

Apparently though, her injury also meant she couldn’t work as a part-time waitress for two weeks at a Pierre Victoire restaurant. Her damages claim is for £75,000. Must get me a job there . . .