NEVER in my working life have I known what a male colleague takes home in his pay packet. Perhaps I am completely naive, but I've always thought that the men, hammering out news stories beside me, have looked at their pay slips every month with the same kind of "is that all?" muted despair as most women in the office.
Undoubtedly there will have been salary discrepancies, but based more on experience rather than gender. And every year when the pay rises are dished out, while most people get the basic, others will receive more to reward hard work, or if an anomaly
exists, to correct it.
In this job there are no bonuses for providing a front-page splash. There is no overtime for chasing a story after 5pm – sometimes till very late at night. Oh, and we work public holidays and weekends. Please try and refrain from shedding a tear.
Working for a local authority, though, has long been a different financial matter. There are bonus systems, overtime payments should you go a minute over your allotted 35.75 hours a week and, of course, the right to every public holiday.
Admittedly there has been vast discrimination when it comes to women doing similar jobs to men, but at least that is rightly being ironed out, although at quite a cost – £15 million to date and expected to top £30m.
Now there's a regrading to make pay fairer – and what does Unison, the union representing the vast majority of council employees, do? Threaten strike action.
This is despite the fact that about 60 per cent of employees will remain on the same pay, while wages will rise for many others, particularly women in low-paid jobs.
Why? Well because public holidays are to be lumped in with annual leave entitlement – with no extra financial reward for those who work holiday Mondays – and because staff will have to work an extra 15 minutes a week, again for no extra cash. So rather than not being able to speak to a council employee after 4pm on a Friday, it will be 4.15pm. Big deal.
The council is finally realising that it has to work in the real world, to have its services available to the people of Edinburgh when they need and want them, and to pay a fair rate to all staff. Of course there are those whose wages may be frozen while the regrading takes place and there's no way the council can expect people to take a salary cut for doing the job they've always done. Indeed a cost-of-living rise rather than a freeze for such employees might be the easier option.
But it's time that Unison woke up and realised that the world has changed. There's no way it will win the public's hearts and minds if it leads staff out on a strike over issues which most people take as part and parcel of their jobs.
Indeed, when the nursery nurses came out on strike because of changes to pay and conditions, the staff were humiliated and in some schools, the relationship between strikers and teachers broke down completely.
Already there are rumblings among Unison members that those leading their union may be past their sell-by date. Talking about strike action before negotiations have even begun will not endear them to their members or the general public.
Facing up to the pastFACEBOOK is a phenomenon I've come to rather late. In fact it was about the same time as Tory leader Dave Cameron discovered it, which says it all really.
However, while it was great catching up with people from years ago, it's now got a bit more serious . . . my past is coming back to haunt me.
An ex-employee of Edinburgh L!VE has decided to start a Facebook group for the two former viewers and staff. This has meant that footage I once thought was consigned to the dustbin of televisual history is now available for all to see. Including my incredibly bad hair.
Okay, I realise it's a bit vain, but seriously, I looked appalling. I was just 25 but the haircut they gave me, made me look about 55. A touch of the Gloria Hunnifords as one colleague put it.
Still, at least it wasn't me who used the wrong "c" word when trying to say "councillors" . . .
Pavement perilPRECISION is not a word I would generally associate with the workings of Edinburgh City Council. But when it comes to laying new pavements, they have the measurements down to the exact width of a stiletto heel.
Most mornings I walk along Market Street playing a childhood game of don't step on the cracks – not because it might mean I fancy the spotty lad in class, but because it will undoubtedly result in another pair of heels ending up mutilated.
Somehow, they have spaced the paving slabs at exactly the right distance to trap an unsuspecting heel, which either results in the shoe needing reheeled, having its leather scrapped off, or as in one particularly sad case, being binned altogether.
A pair of much-loved black boots had their right heel snap in two after being sandwiched between the slabs as I ran for a train.
I can't be the only one suffering this daily assault on my footwear, so I challenge the women of Edinburgh to rise up in their stilettos and complain to their councillors about this. They may take our taxes but they'll never take our right to totter.
The full article contains 931 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
