{"id":791724,"date":"2026-10-04T13:50:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T13:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/791724\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T13:50:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T13:50:14","slug":"thousands-of-glasgow-council-workers-face-pay-cuts-in-one-of-uks-biggest-fire-and-rehire-plans-glasgow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/791724\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands of Glasgow council workers face pay cuts in one of UK\u2019s biggest fire-and-rehire plans | Glasgow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thousands of Glasgow<\/a> council workers face being sacked and reappointed under less favourable terms in one of the UK\u2019s biggest ever \u201cfire-and-rehire\u201d exercises, after union negotiations broke down once again this week.<\/p>\n

About 23,000 workers \u2013 all of the council\u2019s non-teaching staff \u2013 first heard they were affected last week when talks between the SNP-led council and the GMB, Unison<\/a> and Unite unions fell apart. Those negotiations concerned a new pay and grading system designed to resolve historical pay equality issues. Unison refused to ballot its members on an offer that would mean pay cuts for 11% of council employees, prompting the council to begin issuing fire-and-rehire letters.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of this week the fire-and-rehire plans were temporarily paused when Unison returned to the negotiating table. But when discussions collapsed again midweek, the council\u2019s leader, Ricky Bell, suggested Unison members could still be fired and rehired while negotiations with GMB and Unite<\/a> continued. Unison said it was seeking advice on the legality of its members being treated differently based on union membership.<\/p>\n

An emergency motion by Green councillors to block the scheme was also rejected on Thursday by the council\u2019s city administration committee, with the Glasgow Greens co-leader Anthony Carroll saying the city was \u201cfacing a genuine cliff-edge of one of the largest fire-and-rehire schemes in the UK being implemented\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are angry and shocked that the SNP administration moved to fire and rehire all 23,000 staff last week despite its own government\u2019s position,\u201d he said, calling on Bell to personally rule out the move.<\/p>\n

The deputy first minister, Jenny Gilruth, reaffirmed the Scottish government\u2019s view on fire-and-rehire last week, saying \u201cour position is that such a practice does not align with the principles and expected practice of fair work\u201d.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Gilruth chaired mediation talks between the council and Unison, securing a further pause to fire and rehire for the weekend. But the union said it must be taken off the table permanently for negotiations to be \u201cproductive and in good faith\u201d.<\/p>\n

For those affected, the week\u2019s tumultuous events have caused anger and uncertainty. \u201cIt\u2019s been handled terribly,\u201d said one worker affected. \u201cIt\u2019s like a rollercoaster ride of anxiety; we can\u2019t plan for anything and nobody knows what\u2019s going to happen next. We are all furious about how we\u2019ve been treated.\u201d<\/p>\n

One person close to the negotiations said the unions were particularly aggrieved by \u201cthe blatant cynicism\u201d of the council\u2019s fire-and-rehire plans, which were communicated to staff in letters sent at the end of September, meaning a required 12-week notice period expires shortly before the practice becomes illegal in January under UK-wide changes to employment law.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking about a so-called progressive administration who have spent years taking credit for ending the equal pay dispute,\u201d they said. \u201cIt beggars belief they would treat workers who are already undervalued and overworked like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2019, the council agreed to pay more than \u00a3500m<\/a> to 8,000 mostly female workers who had been discriminated against by unequal pay structures. As seen in Birmingham in 2023<\/a>, the authority risks financial ruin if it cannot agree a new pay structure after almost a decade of negotiation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know equal pay is still an issue local authorities across Britain need to solve,\u201d one union source said. \u201cCouncil workers everywhere will surely be looking at what\u2019s happening here and feeling very worried about what might happen to them next.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Glasgow city council agreed in earlier negotiations to protect the pay of those facing wage cuts for an extra year, but Unison said they wanted a further year of protection alongside a number of other concessions.<\/p>\n

Bell said in a statement: \u201cI\u2019m deeply disappointed that, despite the council putting a further year of pay protection on the table, Unison has once again chosen not to put this offer to its members. Taken together with improvements made since August, this represents a package well over \u00a3100m in extra pay for our staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bell said some of Unison\u2019s remaining demands were \u201csimply unworkable\u201d.<\/p>\n

Unison\u2019s Glasgow city branch said: \u201cWe want workers who have waited decades for equal pay to receive every penny they are due. But we will not abandon workers facing devastating losses, or the thousands who still don\u2019t know their outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

They called for \u201ca properly funded settlement that delivers equal pay without leaving thousands of other workers behind\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thousands of Glasgow council workers face being sacked and reappointed under less favourable terms in one of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":791725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-791724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/791725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}