I work for a local authority and am a union steward. My understanding of the whole process (called single status in local government world) is that it's based on the idea of equal pay. You might have heard of the Equal Pay act, folks - it's the one that went onto the statute books in 1976 but have never really been enforced. This means that people like yours truly, a Support Worker with adults with learning disabilities, earn on average 18% less than their male counterparts (and that's just in the public sector - the picture in private industry is much worse). Now, I'm not saying for a minute that all union branches have negotiated a good deal for their members. Some have arrogantly just refused to sit down with councils and deal with this, meaning that really shitty deals are imposed on their members. However, the whole deal means that some will win and some will lose out. Fact of life. I find it insulting that people think that, for example, home carers (who also work bloody hard and with some pretty stressful customers) should earn £6.10 an hour just because some (mostly) male workers paid ridiculous bonuses should continue as they are. If this is geniunely cocked up then there is a justifiable right for people to be pissed off, but we cannot avoid equal pay and allow low paid women to live in poverty any longer. Rant over. Takes deep breath...aaand relax!