SCOTLAND'S biggest local authority is facing a ticking £225m equal pay timebomb three years after it had to remortgage major venues to pay for a settlement.

It comes as Glasgow City Council workers prepared to walk out over an equal pay dispute in two days of strike action that a union said will affect home care, schools and other services.

The dispute is over what unions see as the reneging of an agreement to settle a dispute which has to date cost nearly £550m to end "chronic sex discrimination".

Unison said its members in Glasgow will strike on March 29 and 30 and will then do so again in April if there is no resolution to the dispute.

It is calling out nearly 9,000 members and said that, with a sister trade union also joining the action, more than 12,000 workers could strike.

This would affect home care, cleaning, catering, schools, nurseries, residential homes, homelessness hostels and addiction services across the council.

The council had part-settled with 13,000 women at a total cost of £505m in 2019.

It has emerged that outstanding claims are estimated at £225m - because the unequal pay scheme remains in place.

Unions say that over 5,000 claimants have still received no settlement for the period up to March 2018, and 18,000 claimants are still waiting for a settlement for the period after March 2018.

The Herald:

Sources say the delay cost to settle claims up to 2018 is at around £25m. And to make an interim payment to all claimants from 2018 to now stands at approximately. £200m .

And unions have warned that the amount will keep growing if nothing is done.

There is concern that the new pay and grading system to eliminate gender pay discrimination will not be implemented until 2024 due to the volume of work involved around job evaluation.

Three years ago the city council approved plans to sell off major venues to an arm's length body and leased them back in a bid to try and finance the initial £548m liability.

The move affected venues such as the Armadillo, the Emirates Arena, the Riverside Museum and Toryglen Regional Football Centre and then lease them back to the council - with the cost of the lease designed to meet the loan repayments.

The union says that despite promises from Glasgow City Council to settle equal pay claims, thousands of women are still stuck on unequal pay scales, waiting for their claims to be settled in full.

Mandy McDowall, Unison regional organiser, said: "Every year that employees continue to work under an unequal pay scheme creates another liability for settlement.

"The intention had been for the council to implement a new equality proofed pay scheme but it hasn't done that.

"The whole thing is delayed and therefore people are still being underpaid. The claims for equal pay have only been settled until 2018, that means low paid women continue to be underpaid and this is projected to continue.

The Herald:

"The settlement also only covered one aspect of the claims."

Glasgow City Council say the delay in the pay and grading system was agreed with the claimants’ representatives, including the unions. They say one of the major reasons was that unions did not want members to take part in job evaluation interviews during the pandemic.

The council was praised two years ago by a regulator for their progress in part-settling the equal pay dispute.

The Scottish Accounts Commission said that dealing with the claims had been a "significant development" with more than 98 per cent of cases part-settled.

The claimant group, reached the equal pay deal with the council in 2018.

That came after about 8,000 Glasgow council workers walked out on strike for 48 hours in October 2018 in a bid to settle the long-running pay claim.

The dispute centred around workers in traditionally female-dominated roles such as catering or home care being paid up to £3 an hour less than those in male-dominated jobs, such as refuse workers or grave diggers.

In 2017, two judgements at the Court of Session ruled that both the council's payment protection scheme and its Workforce Pay and Benefits Review discriminated against women workers.

The claimant group as part of the 2019 settlement process, agreed to suspend legal proceedings with the council to focus on replacing the discriminatory pay process.

To pay for the claims, Glasgow City Council approved plans to sell off major venues to an arm's length body before leasing them back.

The dispute, has been fought through the tribunals and courts for more than a decade, stems from 2006, when a new job evaluation scheme was introduced by the then Labour-run council, with the aim of addressing gender pay inequality.

Instead, say the women affected, it entrenched discrimination by paying female-dominated jobs such as catering and cleaning less than male-dominated jobs such as refuse collection because of a complex system that penalised people working split shifts and irregular hours.

After decades of Labour control, the SNP won control of the council in elections in May 2017 on a manifesto that promised to settle the claims. But the women’s representatives soon accused the council of failing to engage properly in negotiations, while critics accused the unions of manipulating the dispute to score points against the new SNP administration.

In 2017, two judgements at the Court of Session ruled that both the council's payment protection scheme and its Workforce Pay and Benefits Review discriminated against women workers.

The claimant group as part of the 2019 settlement process, agreed to suspend legal proceedings with the council to focus on replacing the discriminatory pay process. Glasgow City Council has said it is prepare to make offers to settle new claims on the basis of the 2019 deal.

A council spokesman said: “There is no estimated cost because there is, at this moment, no agreement. "However, negotiations are ongoing and following the process that unions requested and agreed at the time of the 2019 deal.

“They know we are ready to make offers on the new claims. They know that needs to happen before we can address the gap period.”