Glasgow City Council workers protest over equal pay settlement in long-running payment row

Around 80 Unison and Unite and GMB members congregated in the city centre bearing pickets and union flags in their fight for the next wave of cash settlements. 

Union chiefs say that Glasgow City Council is prolonging the second round of payouts to women who were awarded compensation in a 2019 agreement.

The deal saw interim payments made to thousands of women with a second settlement due last year.

But, due to coronavirus, a delay halted the local authority's progress of updating the pay and grading scheme to address gender pay inequality. 

They have predicted that the new scheme won't be ready for at least another two years, meaning workers will have to wait until 2024 for cash settlements -  six years after their initial payment. 

The news of the delay has sparked outrage among employees, including staff in home care, cleaning, catering, nurseries, schools, care homes, homelessness hostels and administration.

READ MORE: Glasgow council leader Susan Aitken slams Labour over equal pay

Cath Stirling, Unison and Unite branch chairwoman, said: "The bottom line is, people have been waiting for this money for a long time and it is stolen wages. This is their money and they are entitled to get it.

“We want Glasgow to adhere to the deal that was made in 2018 and to make no changes to it and to update that deal as soon as possible.

“The second payout was meant to be 2021, obviously, the pandemic has caused a lot of problems but it is not an excuse.

“They’re now looking at 2024 and it is outrageous. These people have paid this money and they are due this money. If you missed your council tax, you wouldn’t get away with it – you’d need to pay it.

“Why should these low-paid workers who worked through a pandemic and risked their own lives and loved ones’ lives not be paid their money?”

Cath Stirling

Around 9000 Unison and Unite members and a further 5000 from the GMB and Unite have been invited to vote for industrial action which could see them walk out. 

It would be the second time for the workers to strike over the ongoing dispute after 8000 women took to the streets to demand fair treatment in 2018. 

The council says that the ballot they have been asked to vote in doesn't reflect the "constructive, ongoing and confidential negotiations" that had taken place until this week. 

Trish O'Connor, who is a retired home carer, worked with the council for 20 years. 

She fears that she might not see her settlement come through in her lifetime. 

READ MORE: Glasgow City Council workers to be balloted for strike action

The 66-year-old said: "Who knows when it’ll come – I thought I was going to get it before I retired. There are thousands of others like me who are retried and waiting on it to come through.

“It makes me angry. We will get it eventually, whether that be through week-long strikes or not. Health and social care will regrettably collapse and it is a shame for the elderly but it has to be done.

“I want the pay to come in this year while I’m still alive to enjoy it.”

Mary Kelly,  a home carer from Townhead added: "We’ve been underpaid for nearly 13 years now.

“It’s absolutely shocking – the cost of living has soared yet our wages have stayed the same. We think it’s disgraceful that we need to do this to get the money that is owed to us.

“They’re using the pandemic as an excuse for a lot of things, this shouldn’t be one.”

Meanwhile, another campaigner named Sylvia Haughney came to the protest dressed as Rosie Riveter - a media icon associated with female defense workers during World War Two.

Sylvia Haughney

Sylvia, who is a Glasgow City Council child development officer, said: “The story behind Rosie Riveter was in the 1940s when the men went to war, women got called in to replace the jobs and they were doing all of the work that the men were doing.

“They were doing all sorts from working the land to machinery and they didn’t get paid the same as men, how disgraceful is that? That was in the 1940s, this is now 2022 and it’s still happening.

“We had a deal in 2018 where they agreed and paid out, the deal was struck and we got some money. They’ve come round and said that they won’t be following that same deal and instead they will be doing a new one.

“Maybe they can legally get away with that but morally, they can’t. Our low-paid women can win this fight and we are calling on the council not to dump the deal.”

Unions are demanding the council to apply the 2019 agreements to claimants who are yet to receive a payment, otherwise known as "new claims". 

They also want the existing arrangements to cover a round of new interim payments for all eligible employees due to the delay in updating and implementing the new pay and grading system. 

Glasgow equal pay strike 2018

Shona Thomson, GMB convenor for the health and social care partnership, said: “These equal pay claims are historic – women have been getting underpaid since 2011. Granted, we did get an interim payment in 2018 but the council is still thick to bring the job evaluation into it.

“We do understand that the pandemic has put a lot of things on hold and naturally, any job evaluation has got to be done fairly and justly. That is by carrying out person-to-person interviews.

“But now, the council is moving from negotiation goalposts. They’re trying to change the whole process and they don’t want to recognise so many jobs that they had paid out to already are still underpaid."

Ballot papers will now go out to workers from January 31.

A Glasgow City Council spokesperson said: “Staff are, of course, entitled to voice any concerns they have. However, the terms of the ballot they have been asked to take part in simply do not reflect what we had, until this week, believed were constructive, ongoing and confidential negotiations.

“The introduction of the new pay and grading scheme has been delayed by Covid. That delay was agreed by unions, which play a key role in the governance of the project.

"The process requires hundreds of face-to-face interviews, which unions themselves felt should not go ahead during the pandemic.”