On 30/10/2014 14:58, Eskimo Will wrote:

"Metman2012" wrote in message
...
On 30/10/2014 13:40, Eskimo Will wrote:

"Graham P Davis" wrote in message
news:20141030132558.501aca2f@home-1...
On Thu, 30 Oct 2014 12:12:53 -0000
"Eskimo Will" wrote:

The offer in no way addresses pay inequalities between sexes

Not quite sure what you mean by this one, Will. The only pay inequality
I noticed when I first started work for the Met Office was that the
take-home pay of a man was lower than that of a woman of equal grade
and service. That was due to only the male workers paying for
widows-and-orphans benefits. However, that went away with pensions
reorganisation years later.

There was an exercise done, in 2011 I think, that looked at pay equality
and there are instances of womens and mens pay in the same grade/same
length of service being different (not necessarily women lower). Reasons
for this are complex and possibly stem in part from pay offered on
appointment. Pay inequality is not really a big issue in the MetO,
however, as it is an equal opportunities employer, but staff were
promised over 5 years ago that any unfair inequalities would be sorted.
They haven't been. In fact the pay system is now effectively broken (due
to government imposition) and things are getting worse not better.

Will
Wasn't there also the issue of women taking time off for children (x
years) and coming back to the same pay scale, but men who joined at
the same time had continued up the pay scale (spine) so were getting
more than the women?

Hi Malcolm, that was when we had a pay spine. As you know the idea of
role pay (which came in in 2008) was equal pay for equal work. The aim
was for staff to take circa 4 years (depending on role) to get to the
full rate for the job. But this was scuppered by the then Labour
government deeming it as unaffordable. I'm not kidding, I was in the
Union Pay negotiating team at that time when we thought we were really
getting somewhere. But on the day of the Treasury announcement of
"unaffordable" - the HR (official side) pay team were literally in
tears. Months of hard work from both sides gone up in smoke because of
the bleedin Treasury. Now new staff *never* make the rate for the job
because their rises are severly restricted. They are kept on lower pay
despite being competent and doing good work. So in the same team doing
the same quality work one person's pay can be £1000s pounds less than
the other simply because one person has been employed longer (pre 2008).
That is wrong.

But hey, look on the bright side, we are paying off the deficit (or are
we? Seems as big as ever?) caused by greedy ignorant w.. er bankers.

Will
Thanks Will for the explanation. I was aware there's no spine now, but
the repercussions of the old system were still with us when I was there
being overpaid because I was old (an HR person said that older staff
were overpaid because they were no longer able to offer value to the
organisation). Still, we're all in it together aren't we - along with
MPs, bankers et al.

Oops, we're retired, we're alright....