Glasgow council faces legal action over new £310m equal pay row as 'chronic sex discrimination' continues

The union-led Glasgow Equal Pay Joint Claimant Group is calling for what it called "leadership intervention" warning that the unresolved dispute will cost Glasgow City Council to date at least a further £310m.

And union leaders have warned that two years after an initial equal pay settlement - the discriminatory salary system has still not been abolished.

They said they will now reactivate legal proceedings if there is no move to resolve the "time bomb" of equal pay liability which they say will cost a further £100m a year for each year that the "discriminatory" pay scheme remains in place.

The council says they do not recognise the figures but was unable to state how much of the claim was still outstanding.

It comes nine months after the council was praised by a regulator for their progress in part-settling the equal pay dispute.

The Scottish Accounts Commission said that dealing with the claims had been a "significant development" with more than 98 per cent of cases part-settled.

The claimant group, which included the unions GMB, Unison and Unite, as well as Action 4 Equality, reached the equal pay deal with the council in 2018.

That came after about 8,000 Glasgow council workers walked out on strike for 48 hours in October 2018 in a bid to settle the long-running pay claim.

The dispute centred around workers in traditionally female-dominated roles such as catering or home care being paid up to £3 an hour less than those in male-dominated jobs, such as refuse workers or grave diggers.

In 2017, two judgements at the Court of Session ruled that both the council's payment protection scheme and its Workforce Pay and Benefits Review discriminated against women workers.

But the representatives for the women say that the original 13,000 equal pay claims only cover a period up to March, 2018.

They do not cover what they said was "continuing discriminatory pay" since then which means there is a further £180m outstanding.

The GMB union say that the rising equal pay costs are because of a "massive delay" in ending the "discriminatory pay scheme" two years after the original part-settlement.

The GMB say that also, in the past two years, a further 5,500 women have come forward with equal pay claims - amounting to a total of a further £130m.

Claimant representatives have written to council leader Susan Aitken expressing concerns over the failure of officials to meet with them to progress negotiations for the council’s job evaluation exercise which was set for March 31, 2021.

The council has said the process which was to come prior to the introduction of a new pay and grading model has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

GMB Scotland organiser Rhea Wolfson of the union's Scotland Women’s Campaign Unit said: "The discrimination against these women has not ended.

"It is wrong to say this is over, they are only part settled. The only people who have had claims completely settled are those who have retired, pre-2018.

"But the discrimination has been ongoing, so every day the women go to work, they are being underpaid. That continues to this day and we are two years on.

"All those who have had settlements now have at least two more years of this.

"The issue is that there has been a massive delay in ending the discrimination pay scheme."

She said the concern was that the council had said it did not want to go further with talks which would mean they would have to take legal proceedings starting with an employment tribunal to value very claim. "That would be a very long, drawn our equal value hearing process which would start through a tribunal.

"It would result in is a court order for Glasgow to pay a certain amount to individual claimants.

READ MORE: 'Deeply concerning': Glasgow equal pay 'time bomb' remains 'unresolved'

"It takes a large amount of time, there are hundreds and hundreds of different jobs in this situation, so while that was happening, the equal pay liaiblities will be amassing. "It is a financially damaging way to go about it. It is not in the best interests of anyone."

The claimant group as part of the 2019 settlement process, agreed to suspend legal proceedings with the council to focus on replacing the discriminatory pay process.

The group said council officials had indicated a delay of ten months for the completion of what they describe as the new job evaluation scheme.

But trade union claimant representatives believe unless there is intervention and support for additional resources, this will not be completed before April, 2023 and are calling on Ms Aitken to act.

GMB Scotland secretary Gary Smith said: “Glasgow’s outstanding equal pay liability continues to remain unresolved – it’s a time bomb for the city and its finances.

“That’s why we are urging Councillor Aitken (above) to personally intervene now, so we can kick-start the process of ending the chronic sex discrimination of working women in Glasgow City Council.

“The gulf between the council officials and the elected leadership is growing again. The failure of officials to meet with the joint claimant group to progress the replacement of the discriminatory job evaluation scheme and settle these residual claims is deeply concerning.

“The aim was to complete the new job evaluation scheme now, at the very least it should be well down the road, and we should be working towards the delivery of settling all outstanding equal pay claims, but instead the liabilities are growing along with the burden on the city.

“Left unchallenged, not only is the council stalling on tackling discrimination and the delivery of justice, but with each passing day its ability to resolve this scandal on its own diminishes as the liability grows.”

A Glasgow City Council spokesman said: “Nobody will be in the slightest bit surprised that the job evaluation process has been affected by the pandemic. It is a complex and time-consuming task involving many frontline staff, which has had to be completely reworked to take account of a situation and public health measures that nobody predicted.

“However, the fact is that those already substantial challenges have been exacerbated at every turn by the refusal of trades unions to engage with a process that they agreed and co-designed.

“It has always been understood that, having settled historic cases, there will be a further cost once a new pay scheme is implemented. However, the figures being quoted have been conjured from thin air.”

To pay for the claims, Glasgow City Council approved plans to sell off major venues to an arm's length body before leasing them back.

Plans were put in place to remortgage venues such as the Armadillo, the Emirates Arena, the Riverside Museum and Toryglen Regional Football Centre and then lease them back to the council - with the cost of the lease designed to meet the loan repayments.