Scotland's largest council will do the "right thing" by opening talks with thousands of female workers following a multi-million pound legal ruling on pay discrimination.
The new leadership at Glasgow City Council said it accepted previous salary systems were prejudiced against low-paid women and needed to address the legacy of excluding female staff from salary some schemes.
The comments come after the Court of Seasion ruled that around 6000 city council workers could go ahead with their equal pay claims, which could see them share in a windfall believed to be worth up to £50 million.
Very proud of this. After years of foot dragging by Labour, the new @theSNP administration in Glasgow commits to settling equal pay claims. https://t.co/Es6kGFFkiF
— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) 30 May 2017
The Court ruled that the women had been excluded from sizeable bonuses for many years. Unions and lawyers had argued that while the claimants had been unfairly discriminated against before the new system was introduced a decade ago, the city council had continued with unequal pay by excluding women claimants from pay protection.
It is still unclear what the scale of the payouts will be or the impact on the authority's financial position. The new SNP administration on the council had made a manifesto commitment to resolve all outstanding equal pay disputes.
A decision on a second, more significant, challenge to Glasgow's overall workforce, pay and benefits system is currently going through the Court of Session.
Union sources said the payouts from this case alone will cost the city council tens of millions of pounds, with one citing a figure "of at least £50million".
In her first major decision since taking over the council earlier this month, Susan Aitken, leader of Glasgow City Council, signalled her administration accepted today's ruling and would not seek other legal avenues to overturn it.
Ms Aitken said: "This is a complex legal ruling. However it is now clear that the award of pay protection was done in a way which discriminated against some of our female workers at that time.
"The right thing to do now is for the council to have open discussions with those workers and their representatives about how we give effect to this ruling. I hope there will be goodwill on both sides during those discussions.”
One leading union source said: "The old regime resisted what had been decided in other cases across the UK from 2009, while new administration indicated during the local government election that they would address the issue. This has been repeated since and we look forward them holding to that through early discussions."
The only legal avenues open to the city council to challenge the decision would be to take the case to the UK supreme courts or to the European Courts.
Mike Kirby, Unison's Scottish Secretary, said: “The pay protection win is great news. The way Glasgow rates and pays workers has been the source of conflict and division for ten years. "These women have already waited long enough to receive the pay they have worked hard for and deserve. It's time for Glasgow City Council to do the right thing and pay up on equal pay.”
Female workers celebrate a previous equal pay victory. But unions and council warns against premature jubilation in latest Glasgow case
Gary Smith, head of GMB Scotland, which represents about 1500 of the women involved, said: "The vast majority of them are our carers, caterers and cleaners, employed on the bottom rungs of the local government pay spine yet making some of the biggest contributions to the running of our local services.
"The new council leadership has been elected on a manifesto promise to resolve all outstanding equal pay claims and it goes without saying that GMB Scotland fully expects this to be honoured as swiftly as possible."
The unions and lawyers for the women are also challengi g the council’s method of measuring the value of jobs, in particular the use of different scales, one for core pay and others for non-core pay.
A city council spokesman said: “The council implemented a new pay and benefits structure, designed to ensure equal pay more than ten years ago.
"The matter before the court on this occasion related to the initial implementation of that scheme – and, more specifically, the decision to offer a three year period of payment protection as a ‘soft landing’ for members of the workforce facing a drop in earnings.”
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