UNION bosses have fired a major salvo at Glasgow City Council over equal pay talks.

GMB Scotland had warned that immediate action must be taken by the council or strikes affecting home care and schools will go ahead.

But while the union claims the move is "following the collapse of negotiations", the council said it is still in talks with union Unite and Action4Equality Scotland, which represents women seeking compensation.

GMB Scotland has more than 2,500 members in Cordia, providing around the clock home care for 87,000 services users, and delivering catering and cleaning services in schools.

It has now issued a statutory seven-day notice for a full industrial action ballot of its entire membership across Cordia Services.

Union representatives said the council has scrapped proposals for a negotiated settlement of second wave equal pay claims with the joint claimant group.

The union claims council officials informed representatives from GMB, Unison and Action 4 Equality that they will no longer work to an agreed timetable to reach a negotiated settlement.

GMB Scotland Organiser Rhea Wolfson said: “We’ve had 17 meetings between the joint claimant group and council officials since late last year and we haven’t even crossed the starting line into meaningful negotiation over our members’ claims.

"Targets have been missed, deadlines have been ignored and now negotiations have been scrapped.

"We are no further forward to resolving these claims today than we were on the day of the first meeting.

"This is a total failure on the part of the council."

Female council workers are fighting for equal pay after a court found Glasgow City Council to have discriminated against them.

The fight has been ongoing for the past decade.

Ms Wolfson added: "While these officials continue to duck the council's responsibility for years of discrimination, the final bill for the monies stolen from our members continues to rise into hundreds of millions, and possibly over a billion - the deception is shameful.

"Our members’ patience has been exhausted.

"They want a fair and negotiated settlement of their equal pay claims within a reasonable timescale; not some half-baked bribe before Christmas offering far less than they are owed.

"Without an immediate intervention from the council leadership, strike action in Cordia is inevitable because these women know their worth and they’ll fight for what they are owed.”

A council spokesman said: “The council is fully committed to resolving equal pay claims.

“Earlier this year, the council, GMB, Unison and Action 4 Equality Scotland signed up to negotiations and a schedule that we all agreed was likely, given the complexity of the subject, to take us to around the end of the current year.

“Since then, we have made undeniable and significant progress – ending litigation; bringing Cordia, where most of the affected staff are employed, back into the Council; harmonising the terms and conditions of Cordia staff, and agreeing to replace the councils entire pay and grading structure.

“The council still wants and expects to agree a settlement by the end of this year. The council remains at the table for talks with those representing claimants.”