Glasgow City Council Update

The current position in Glasgow is that all of the outstanding equal pay claims are heading for the Court of Session in Edinburgh, Scotland's highest civil court.

Action 4 Equality Scotland clients are being represented by leading counsel (two senior QCs) and A4ES is firmly of the view that Glasgow will find it very difficult to overturn the judgement of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT). Not only that the Council also runs the big risk of a successful appeal by A4ES undermining the whole of the WPBR scheme.

The EAT decided that the Council had protected the higher bonus related pay of male workers after implementing its Workforce Pay and Benefits Review (WPBR) in 2007. As such thousands of mainly women council workers have significant equal pay claims for the protection and assimilation period of the WPBR.

Glasgow City Council is the only council in Scotland not to have reached a settlement over this claim period unlike neighbouring Labour-run councils, for example North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire.

A full hearing of the case is not likely to take place until sometime in 2017 and there is also the possibility of a further appeal to the UK Supreme Court.

As you would expect there have been efforts made over the summer to establish whether the Council leadership is prepared to negotiate a settlement to these cases instead of fighting them all the way through the court process.

If not, then A4ES intends to campaign publicly against the present administration in the run up to the local council elections in May 2017 which will require the support of all our clients in Glasgow.

As a first step we would aim to make contact with the official opposition group on Glasgow City Council along with other local councillors, MSPs and MPs to explain why the EAT came down so firmly in the claimants favour, and why A4ES expects the claimants to succeed at the Court of Session and/or UK Supreme Court. 

So watch this space for further news.