Submitted by Bill Fernie
25th September 2026
Glasgow City Council has taken a dramatic step in its long-running equal-pay dispute, giving notice that it intends to end existing pay arrangements for its non-teaching workforce unless an agreement can be reached with the trade unions.
Around 23,000 employees are affected. The council says the move is necessary to allow it to introduce a new pay and grading structure from April 2027 which it believes will finally provide equal pay for equal work.
It is easy to describe this simply as a dispute over wages, but the background is considerably more complicated.
Glasgow has been wrestling with equal-pay problems for many years. The council's proposed new structure replaces existing arrangements for core pay and allowances and follows a lengthy programme of job evaluation and negotiations with the unions.
The council says the new arrangements would actually represent a substantial increase in its overall payroll bill, of more than 10%. It says more than 18,200 employees would see an increase in income.
But that does not mean everyone gets more.
Some employees currently receive allowances or other payments which would disappear or be reduced under the new arrangements. The council says it has tried to minimise the number of employees who suffer a financial loss and has proposed measures including pay protection and other ways of mitigating the impact.
That is where the dispute with the unions becomes particularly difficult.
Glasgow says that in recent negotiations GMB and Unite supported an approach which would have allowed their members to vote on the latest offer. Unison did not agree to put the proposal to its members.
With no collective agreement involving all three unions, the council says it now has to give formal notice ending the existing arrangements so that the new structure can be introduced lawfully.
The council insists that this is not intended to result in employees simply losing their jobs. It says staff will retain continuity of service and that the intention is for new contracts to begin immediately after the old ones end. If a collective agreement cannot be reached, individual offers of continued employment will be made.
What about Highland?
There is an important difference for people in the Highlands.
Highland Council also had to deal with substantial equal-pay issues, but the experience was rather different from the situation Glasgow is facing today.
When I was chairman of Highland Council's Resources Committee, the council was already aware that settling the outstanding equal-pay claims could create a substantial financial liability. Money was therefore being set aside over a period of years to help meet the eventual cost.
I have to give full credit to Highland council officials who understaood the magnitude of the problem and brought forward the plan to deal with such a serious issue. If was not for dealing with thing the way they were Highland council might be facing a similar isse to that of gasgow city council.
That was important because there was a recognition that simply waiting until the claims had to be paid could have created a serious problem for the council's finances and potentially for other services.
Highland's records show that the council was working on the settlement of outstanding equal-pay claims more than a decade ago. In 2016 the Resources Committee was receiving reports on progress in settling outstanding claims, while in 2017 councillors were still discussing the conclusion of the remaining cases.
The Highland experience therefore provides an interesting contrast with Glasgow. The issue was not allowed simply to become a sudden financial problem. The council had to plan for the liability and build provision into its finances over time.
There is a broader lesson here for local government. Large liabilities rarely disappear simply because a council cannot afford to deal with them immediately. They can often be easier to manage when they are identified early and provision is made gradually.
Highland's present position is therefore not the same as Glasgow's. It is not facing a wholesale restructuring of its workforce pay arrangements on the scale now proposed in Glasgow.
The latest Highland figures show a combined gender pay gap of 3.2% across all employees in 2024, although the gap varies between full-time and part-time employees and between different groups of staff.
The Glasgow case nevertheless remains relevant to every council because it demonstrates how difficult and expensive it can be to correct historic pay arrangements once they have become deeply embedded.
For Glasgow, the immediate question is whether an agreement can still be reached before April 2027. For its employees, the more important question is what the new system will mean for individual pay packets.
And for taxpayers, there is another question worth asking: how much easier is it to deal with a major liability when a council recognises it early and puts money aside, rather than waiting until the bill arrives?
Why does Glasgow matter beyond Glasgow?
The Glasgow case is nevertheless worth watching elsewhere in Scotland because it demonstrates how difficult it can be to correct an historic pay system.
Changing the structure can mean that thousands of people gain, while others lose existing allowances or benefits. Even when the overall payroll bill rises, individual employees can still find themselves worse off.
For councils already struggling with tight budgets, this creates another difficult calculation. A new pay system may be necessary to remove historic inequalities, but the transition can itself be expensive.
There is also a lesson in the difference between equal pay and the gender pay gap.
Equal pay means that people should receive equal pay for work of equal value. A gender pay gap measures the difference between the average earnings of men and women across a workforce. A council can therefore have a gender pay gap without necessarily paying men and women differently for exactly the same job.
That distinction can easily become lost when the words "equal pay" and "gender pay gap" are used interchangeably.
Glasgow's experience also shows why changing long-established employment arrangements is rarely straightforward. The council says its new structure is designed to remove discriminatory arrangements, while the unions are concerned about the effect on employees whose existing pay or allowances may be reduced.
The outcome will be watched closely by other Scottish councils.
For Glasgow, the immediate question is whether an agreement can still be reached before April 2027. For employees, the more important question is what the new system will actually mean for their individual pay packets.
And for taxpayers, there is another question: how much does it ultimately cost to put right a pay system that has been allowed to develop over many years?