Glasgow council workers to strike once more in equal pay dispute

UNISON trade union members in Glasgow City Council are to strike on 29th and 30th March over equal pay compensation payments, as are members of the GMB trade union.

The workers, overwhelmingly women, will then strike again in April if there is no resolution to the dispute. A statement from Glasgow City Unison, in which Socialist Party Scotland and Scottish TUSC supporters play a leading role, is below.

“UNISON is calling out nearly 9,000 members, and with our sister trade union also joining the action, this could see over 12,000 workers out on strike.

This is larger than the historic equal pay strike in the city four years ago and will affect home care, cleaning, catering, schools, nurseries, residential homes, homelessness hostels, addiction services and admin functions across the council.

Kath Stirling, UNISON Branch Chair, said:”The purpose of the strike action is to force the council to maintain the current arrangements for equal pay compensation payments. These were won after the last strike but the council is moving to tear-up those arrangements.

This could see smaller payments for some and others left out completely. There is no moral or political justification for such an approach.

These are the same women, in the same jobs still being paid under the same discriminatory gender pay scheme. The women and their jobs haven’t changed so why should the compensation arrangements.”We say no dumping of the 2019 deal. No exclusions.

“The deal previously agreed saw compensation payments made to 31 March 2018 to 14,000 claimants, with the council now saying that another 5,000 new claims will be brought up to that date.

But with the new pay and grading scheme not due to be implemented until at least 2024 the women are entitled to further pay outs.

Ms Stirling continued:”We have been fighting for equal pay justice for years in the courts, workplaces and streets. We have fought previous council administrations and we have fought this one.

We are not going away until the council meets its obligations to women in this city”

full support

Socialist Party Scotland gives full solidarity to Glasgow council workers in this historic dispute.

Disgracefully, the SNP administration is again showing its anti-trade union colours by trying to dump the 2019 deal. The 2018 equal pay strike was a mass shutdown of council services for 48 hours with cleansing and other council departments walking out in solidarity in defiance of the anti-trade union laws.

In the run up to this year’s council elections and the escalating cost of living crisis this strike will be even more politically damaging for the SNP.

The whole workers’ movement must give support to this strike including the STUC. Solidarity action and coordinating national strike action for pay increases in line with price rises are essential.

Again and again Glasgow’s low paid female workers have been let down not just by the SNP but Labour in Glasgow before them.

That’s why a socialist, pro-trade union political alternative is urgently needed. Scottish TUSC is standing candidates across Glasgow in the forthcoming elections in support of the equal pay strike but also for a fighting no cuts/ needs budget policy where the council utilises financial mechanisms to stop the cuts and fund the needs of working-class people in the city, mobilising a mass campaign to demand the funding from Holyrood and Westminster.