LAWYER Stefan Cross knew he was going to have a long fight on his hands back in 2005 when, just as had happened in Birmingham three months previously, Glasgow City Council got together with its employees’ trade unions in a bid to see off the equal pay claims he had just filed on their behalf.

Having paid out £25 million in hurriedly agreed settlements, the council had hoped the issue would go away, but when a new pay scheme implemented in 2007 only served to exacerbate past inequalities the case got bigger and Mr Cross has fought on the women’s behalf ever since.

READ MORE: Equal pay agreement is just the beginning of the end for Glasgow

As was the case in Birmingham - which eventually settled for over £1 billion in 2012 and 2013 - Glasgow City Council chose to fight its workers through the courts, with the matter going all the way to the Court of Session before being halted by council leader Susan Aitken in favour of negotiation at the beginning of last year.

With a £500m settlement now agreed, many believe the dispute would never have got to this point without Mr Cross, who represents the bulk of the 14,000 claimants. He, however, has a different take.

“The significant thing about Glasgow is that after the Employment Appeal Tribunal decision the women formed a Facebook group - that has been transformative,” he said. “That absolutely, totally changed the landscape of how we were able to interact and their direct involvement in the case.

“In a lot of other areas the women would be instrumental in getting it all kicked off but then it passed to us to get on with it. That was the situation here for the first 10 years but then in the last two to three years they have been driving the wagon. That’s been the best thing about it.”

READ MORE: Glasgow City Council confirms £500m equal-pay settlement

Though he said the women he represents are “massively elated” that an agreement has finally been reached, Mr Cross noted that there is still some way to go before their shares of the £500m can be safely banked.

And, while the settlement brings an end to one part of a hard-fought campaign for the Glasgow women, Mr Cross stressed that there is more to come, with the huge question of how their jobs - and those of their male equivalents - should be valued and remunerated still to be answered.

As Mr Cross said: “We’re drawing a line under the history but there’s still a problem in the present.”