PAYMENTS of up to £100,000 are being offered to council workers in a long-running equal pay row.
Settlement letters are being sent to thousands of current and former Glasgow City Council workers after the local authority agreed to pay out at least £500 million earlier this year, more than a decade on from the dispute arising.
Around 16,000 workers, mostly women, brought claims against the then Labour-controlled council following a Court of Session ruling in 2017 that female employees had been discriminated against.
The council adopted the Workforce Pay and Benefit Review, implementing its job evaluation-based pay and grading system in 2006, with the aim of ensuring men and women received equal pay for jobs of the same value.
But some women claim they were paid £3 an hour less than men in similarly graded roles. The claimant group, including unions GMB, Unison, Unite as well as Action 4 Equality, reached a deal with the council months after around 8000 Glasgow council workers walked out on strike for 48 hours in October in a bid to settle the pay claim.
Now, payment offers are arriving, with the GMB union saying settlements average out to around £22,000 while some are up to £100,000.
GMB branch secretary Shona Thomson, who is employed as a home carer, said: “It actually feels quite surreal. It’s finally here and we’ve got our letter and know our amounts.
“I’m just so happy for all my colleagues and all of us that have been underpaid for all these years. It’s not a bonus that we’ve got - it is our money that we’ve earned.”
Unison steward and cleaning supervisor Lyn Marie O’Hara said she felt a sense of “justice delivered”. She said: “It delivers equality and a recognition of the fact the we have been disadvantaged in our working lives. Some 163 people have died waiting on their equal pay.”
GMB Scotland organiser Rhea Wolfson said: “Today is incredibly important in that it is a culmination of 12 years of fighting for pay equality in Glasgow but it’s not the end of the journey as members are still underpaid and that won’t change until the new job evaluation scheme is put in place.”
“The level of some of the payments shows how much was taken from some of these women. It’s not a lottery win – it’s what these women should have been paid and for the council to have deprived so many women of this money is jaw-dropping. Sadly, for too many women it has come too late.”
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel