CARE workers and council chiefs are on a headlong collision towards industrial action after plans to cut hundreds of jobs and changes to working terms emerged.
Union leaders have accused Glasgow City Council's social care spin-off of trying to force 1,600 staff to move to new arrangements which, they allege, include many signing away rights under the European Working Time Directive.
The council is also looking to reduce the number of home care posts within its arms-length company Cordia by around 350 from approximately 3,000 through voluntary redundancies.
The local authority said it was untrue that new shift patterns would be in breach of EU directives, adding around 1,000 workers had already volunteered for the changes.
The expected dispute is the latest in a long line of conflicts between Unison and the city council in recent years. Although the overwhelming majority of home care staff are members of the GMB union any action by Unison would have an impact on services.
Sam Macartney, Unison Glasgow Branch Officer, said: "We believe the council should be investing in social care jobs not cutting them. We also understand that sometimes working arrangements have to be altered however the proposed shifts undermine workers' health and safety, work life balance and personal caring responsibilities.
"This is an overwhelming female workforce who earn just above the living wage and deliver essential care to the most vulnerable older people in our city. These workers should be treated with respect."
A spokesman for Cordia said the Care Inspectorate had demanded the organisation "offer a high quality, flexible service that provides continuity" and this was behind the changes.
He added: "To do that, we need a more flexible workforce which will allow us to provide a service when it suits those often vulnerable people, rather than when we have capacity.
"It is simply incorrect to say that any of the shift patterns being offered to staff breach the Working Time Directive.
"More than 1,000 of Cordia's staff have been working these patterns for some time. This has been successfully implemented and we have been engaging with trades unions and staff over recent weeks and months with the intention of increasing that number."
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