A worthy win for women workers
CONGRATULATIONS to the thousands of women who have won a legal battle to proceed with equal pay claims against Glasgow City Council.
But shame on the previous administration for putting them through the emotional and financial stress of years of legal wrangling.
Most of the women are carers, caterers and cleaners on low wages. The pittance they earn is in contrast to the huge contribution they make to the running of Scotland’s largest city.
These are the women who look after our elderly, feed our kids at school and rise at the crack of dawn to clean our public buildings.
The Equal Pay Act 1970 came into force in 1975 – yet discrimination is still depriving women of their fair share.
The act came about after 187 women sewing-machinists at Ford Dagenham in east London launched strike action over sex discrimination in job grading which saw them paid less for doing the same job as men.
That was in 1968 yet today, as then, women are dismissed as working for “pin money”.
The reality, of course, is that women forced to trudge their way through long hours for little reward are working for survival – not only their own but often their family’s.
Some of the Glasgow women will be their household’s sole earner, others may be single mums, perhaps carers to elderly parents.
While they suffered under years of Tory austerity, the city’s former Labour administration refused to do the decent thing and give them the money they were due.
We expect such contempt for low-paid women from the Tories, not from Labour.
The women of Glasgow have not been alone in falling victim to such discrimination.
North Lanarkshire Council’s equal pay settlement could reach £140million after unions colluded with the administration to cheat women out of bonuses paid to men.
On so many fronts, these women were betrayed simply because their gender excluded them from the boys’ club.
Their victory is significant not only for them but for all women who, just like men, have a right to a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work.