Glasgow City Council to fire-and-rehire workers as equal pay talks break down

Glasgow City Council is to dismiss all non-teaching staff and issue new contracts after equal pay talks broke down.

The local authority has accused the Unison trade union of a ‘betrayal’ of its members after no agreement was reached on the acceptance of new terms.

The council has drawn up a new pay structure aimed at finally ending the equal pay saga which has run for 20 years and cost the public purse around £770m.

While most workers would see their pay increase or remain level, 11 per cent would suffer a wage cut of up to £11,000.

A recent report warned that failure to implement that new deal on time was vital and the city – which faces a £110m budget gap – has reached a “critical period”.

Today the council confirmed that while the GMB and Unite unions had agreed to ballot members on the new deal, Unison – the largest of the three – had not, and its representatives had failed to attend a scheduled meeting.

Letters of dismissal will be sent to 23,000 non-teaching staff next week, with new contracts to take effect on 1 January.

In a statement, the council said: “There is now no agreed way forward between the council and the joint trade unions.

“This means that in order to lawfully bring our discriminatory pay and grading structure to an end and replace it with a non-discriminatory scheme we will have to dismiss all of our non-teaching staff and issue new contracts.”

The council said it had produced an improved offer to staff last week which included a “substantial” uplift for additional back pay. It said Unison had withdrawn support for the process and “made it clear that they are not prepared to ballot their members” without providing a “substantive reason” for the position.

GMB and Unite said the enhanced deal would include £110m and told members this was now “hanging by a thread”. They said they would enter into a dispute if the fire-and-rehire process goes ahead.

Colin Edgar, director of communications and corporate governance at the council, placed responsibility for the breakdown of the process solely with Unison.

The trade union has been contacted for comment.

Edgar said: “The offer which has been unilaterally rejected by Unison would have taken dismissals off the table and seen additional cash for those members of staff, and members of all unions, who are due back pay.

“It beggars belief that they would betray their own members in this way.

“If the joint trade unions ballot their members on these enhanced terms and make a collective agreement we will of course withdraw these notices. If they are unable to do that then staff will be reengaged on the terms set out in the recently agreed City Administration Committee report which do not include the enhancements.

“We understand that issue of dismissal notices, regardless of how much we reassure people that we intend to re-engage, will cause significant concern to our staff which is why we have worked so hard to avoid this necessity. We value our staff and we want their service with us to continue. This is purely precautionary, but it could and should have been avoided.”