A DECADE-LONG dispute in which thousands of female workers at Glasgow City Council have been underpaid will see the finally local authority cave in to demands today – but the employees are being warned not to expect an automatic pay-out.
More than 10,000 employees and former employees have claimed a workforce pay and benefits review (WPBR) in 2006 discriminated against women in roles such as catering, cleaning and caring, and settling the claims could cost as much as £500 million.
However the decision to abandon attempts to fight the claim through the courts and Employment Tribunals is still likely to mean months of negotiations as the council aims to resolve issues on a sector-by-sector basis.
Today, the City Administration Committee is expected to vote against taking a case directly to the Court of Appeal, after the council was refused leave to do so last August at the Court of Session. A second option – of seeking to have the separate claims resolved through the Employment Tribunal – is also set to be ruled out.
Council leader Susan Aitken has pledged to end the dispute, and SNP councillors will be whipped to support the third option of negotiating with the unions and lawyers representing the women, with a view to resolving their claims.
Should the committee vote as expected, it would be against the advice of the council's lawyers who argue a Supreme Court case might be winnable. A briefing paper for the meeting says : "In their opinion, we have arguable points of law which may be successful," adding that they also recommended fighting on "because the amounts at stake are very large indeed."
However the council's leadership believe further court action has no guarantee of success and would increase a legal bill which already exceeds £2.5 million. Meanwhile resolving individual "equal value" claims through the Employment Tribunal would be likely to take a number of years.
Stefan Cross QC, whose firm Action 4 Equality Scotland represents 80 per cent of the workers with claims, said the outcome of the vote was not secure. "It is not in the bag at all," he said, "Nevertheless removing prospect of appeal is huge step to a fair settlement sooner rather than later."
Campaigners are concerned that Labour councillors are being allowed a free vote on the issue and several are known to support continuing to appeal. Mr Cross added: "Labour couldn’t agree a position and it’s a free vote with the former leader and his supporters backing an appeal. It still shocks me that some in Labour want to fight low paid women seeking equal pay."
The SNP group will need just one opposition councillor to support ending the appeal for it to be confirmed. Two Green councillors are believed to back this third option, while Labour's Matt Kerr, in a Facebook post, said: "I will not be voting to take the legal process any further... The broad legal position is now clear and it's time to get into the details in order to settle the issue.”
A spokesman for Glasgow City Council said: “The City Government is clear that they want this matter solved by negotiation rather than litigation.
“The City Administration Committee will decide whether to seek leave to appeal directly to the Supreme Court."
However he said meetings with unions to attempt to resolve claims would go ahead whatever the outcome. "Regardless of legal proceedings, the council and the claimants’ representatives are now meeting regularly and we have agreed a schedule of meeting for the rest of this calendar year.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel