News from Greenwich

Greenwich Council is in the process of making 'buy out' offers - but only to some of its many employees who have perfectly good equal pay claims.

As predicted (in two earlier posts dated 29 March), - the council is not explaining the size of the pay gap between traditional male and female jobs - or indeed how these 'buy out' offers are calculated.

So, they are really just trying to bully people into making decisions without understanding what they are being asked to accept - i.e. is the offer a 'good' or a 'bad' deal.

In reality, Greenwich employees are being offered a very poor deal - a one-off payment that does not even deliver equal pay - even after all these years

Also, the council are making offers only to some of the old 'manual worker's posts - leaving out groups like teaching assistants and many others who have perfectly valid claims.

As usual, the trade unions are nowhere to be seen and are failing to provide their members with practical advice and support.

For example, the unions (if they wanted to) could explain the size of people's claims. And the unions (if they wanted to) could explain the size of the pay gap between male and female jobs - after all they negotiated the bonus schemes for refuse workers, gardeners, gravediggers and suchlike.

Interestingly, ACAS are also involved in Greenwich - they are supposed to be impartial in any disputes between employers and their employees - but this publicly funded body is really just acting as an agent for the council - instead of providing professional, even-handed advice to employees as well.

ACAS won't explain the size of the pay gap or the real value of people's claims - so how can they possibly advise employees about whether a 'buy out' offer should be accepted?

We have chased them out of town in other parts of the country - we will now expose their shameful behaviour in Greenwich and other London boroughs.