Stefan Cross update – communication from action 4 equality

Email below received on 12 February 2009 from Mark Irvine commenting on our 2 January 2009 story about the Scottish clients of English solicitor Stefan Cross.  Looks like no love lost between Unison and Action 4 Equality.  Scots Law News is happy to be updated, however belatedly.

 Dear Hector

Try to keep up – your article on the Quinn case is poorly informed – here's what we had to say about it weeks ago – on the Action 4 Equality Scotland blog site!

Kind regards

Mark Irvine

Storms and Teacups (2)

Regular readers of the Action 4 Equality Scotland blog site have been in touch to say that Unison has mounted another of its regular attacks on Stefan Cross – this time by including an article on the Quinn case in its members' magazine. The claims in the magazine are inaccurate and untrue.

Union bosses are angry at Action 4 Equality Scotland and Stefan Cross for highlighting the big pay gap between male and female jobs – and for leading the fight on equal pay – because that's exactly what the unions should have been doing all this time. 
 
Here's what we had to say about the Quinn case in December 2008 – nothing has changed since then – apart from the fact that the number of Stefan Cross clients keeps increasing by the day.

Post from 22 December 2008

"Regular readers of equal pay news in the press may have come across a story about a disgruntled former SCS client from Edinburgh – who's upset at receiving a bill from Stefan Cross.

For reasons that have never been explained, the woman walked away from her agreement with Stefan Cross. But she then became annoyed at receiving a bill for work carried out on her behalf – up to the point that she decided to end the agreement.

The whole thing is really just a storm in a teacup and the person concerned is being used by her trade union, Unison, to attack Stefan Cross. Anyway, up till now we've resisted the temptation to respond, because our only concern is to progress the thousands of equal pay claims lodged in the Scottish tribunal system.

But since Unison keeps spreading lies and misinformation about the case, Stefan Cross has released the following statement to the press:

"As far as we're concerned, this is a client who has had a lot of work done on her case and has received a bill. We had a ten-day hearing at a tribunal in June and August with leading counsel, at considerable expense, establishing the client's right to pursue her claim along with all the other Edinburgh cases."We have never suggested and we are not suggesting now that the client should pay any more than the £500 we have asked her for. She decided to end the agreement, not us."

For whatever reason, the person is disgruntled and has gone back to Unison to pursue her case.

Now this is odd because Unison failed to advise her that she had a case to begin with – and Unison is the same trade union that kept its women members – in Edinburgh and elsewhere – completely in the dark about equal pay for years.

So, we say good luck to her – because she'll definitely need it to get anywhere with her trade union – especially given its previous track record.

For the latest news on equal pay visit:
www.action4equalityscotland.blogspot.com

Scots Law News would simply add that there is still no sign on the Court of Session website of any decided case involving claims by either Stefan Cross or any erstwhile client.