Equal Pay Settlement Update

Published: 18 January 2019

Glasgow City Council and the equal pay claimant group represented by Action4Equality, UNISON, GMB and UNITE are delighted to confirm that they have reached an agreement in principle to a package of payments to resolve historical claims for unequal pay within the claimant group.

This does not represent the end of the process as a number of steps still require to be taken before payments are made. These steps include:

• Seeking approval for the deal from members of Glasgow City Council

• Seeking approval from the claimants

• Completing the process of raising the funding to meet the cost

• Finalising various technical agreements around, for example, how and when the money is paid to claimants.

This means that while payments will be made in this calendar year they will be made in the next financial year.

Councillor Susan Aitken, Leader of Glasgow City Council, said,

"Almost exactly a year since the City Government led on the hugely significant step of abandoning many years of litigation on Equal Pay, I am delighted that the Council and claimants representatives have agreed an offer which I will recommend to Committee for their approval in the coming weeks.

"We were clear that this was always likely to take at least a year and the sheer volume of cases involved and the complexity of the Council's pay and grading arrangements were such that this was never going to be easy. My commitment to resolving this issue has never wavered and I have never needed to be convinced of the case for equality.

"I would like to thank each and every Council officer who has been involved in this at times extremely challenging process, the claimants' representatives who have steadfastly represented their members and clients throughout and the claimants themselves for their patience.

"After a decade of obstruction and inaction, in a relatively short space of time we have now reached agreement which delivers the pay justice these women long have fought for.  I am proud to be able to recommend a settlement to right this historic injustice and I trust colleagues across the Chambers will support this deal and the work we must undertake to address the future challenges it places before us."