Joanne, a support for learning worker in Glasgow, learned two weeks ago that the council's proposed pay system would cut her income by about £300 a year.
She was among more than 23,000 non-teaching staff whom Glasgow City Council had planned to dismiss and rehire on new contracts. The council agreed on Friday to pause that plan after online talks chaired by Deputy First Minister Jenny Gilruth, and letters due to be sent to staff will now not be issued.
The dispute concerns an overhaul of the council's pay and grading structure, agreed at a meeting last month after eight years of negotiations. It is intended to replace a system found to discriminate against mostly women workers.
That earlier system paid women in jobs including catering and cleaning less than workers in male-dominated roles such as refuse collection. The council has paid over £770m to 19,000 claimants after the disparity emerged.
The council's proposed system would leave 63% of affected workers financially better off, while 11% would have their pay reduced. The cuts could reach £11,000.
Talks with GMB, Unison and Unite had progressed over several weeks. The council first offered six months of pay protection to staff facing losses, then 12 months, before offering a further year after it secured additional funding.
GMB and Unite agreed to ballot their members on the offer and secured an additional £110 million to ease the impact on workers facing lower pay. Unison declined to ballot its members on the latest proposal, without giving a substantive reason, and talks fell apart on Wednesday night.
Colin Edgar, the council spokesman and director of communications, told Sky News: “In the last two weeks, we have been so close to a deal.” He said: “Twice Unison at the last minute have pulled the rug out from all of us”.
Edgar said the discriminatory scheme “has to go”. He acknowledged that some staff faced cuts of almost £11,000, while saying a year's pay protection had been negotiated earlier and that the council had 18 months before it took effect.
The council had said it would withdraw redundancy notices if all three unions agreed to ballot their members on the pay offer.
Ricky Bell, the council leader, rejected the description of a breakdown at a city administration committee meeting on Thursday. He said talks with GMB and Unite were continuing, and said he was deeply disappointed that Unison had declined to put the offer to its members despite the additional year of pay protection.
An emergency motion from Green councillors asking Bell to rule out fire and rehire was not accepted at that meeting.
Unison's Glasgow education convener, Sylvia Haughney, called the policy “utterly immoral” and “shockingly deplorable”. She said most workers facing pay cuts were women, described the council's claims as “misleading” and “false”, and called the offer a “shoddy deal”.
GMB and Unite called the threatened action a “scandalous threat” and said they would “immediately enter into dispute” if the council used fire-and-rehire tactics to impose terms by January 1.
Graham McNabb, Unite's industrial officer, said: “If they go down this reckless path, then it will be met with the full force of Unite”.
Before the pause, dismissal letters were due to cover every non-teaching employee on the council's books, including chief executive Susanne Millar, nursery staff and refuse collectors. New contracts had been scheduled to take effect from 1 January, and the letters said continuity of service would be preserved.
Changes to UK-wide employment law will come into effect on 1 January, making it automatically unfair to dismiss an employee for refusing to accept contract changes.
Gilruth has remained involved in discussions between the council and Unison. Justice Secretary Neil Gray urged the council and unions to “get around the table”.
Negotiations involving the council, GMB, Unison and Unite are due to resume early next week in an effort to reach a new pay agreement. The fire-and-rehire plan remains paused while those talks continue.
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