GMB Serve Strike Ballot Notice In Cordia As Equal Pay Talks Collapse

GMB serve strike ballot notice in Cordia as equal pay talks collapse

“Our women know their worth and they’ll fight for what they are owed”

GMB Scotland has today (Thursday 16 August) warned Glasgow City Council (GCC) that without immediate interventions, strikes affecting home care and schools will be inevitable following the collapse of equal pay negotiations.

The union has issued a statutory seven day notice for a full industrial action ballot of its entire membership across Cordia Services, where the vast majority of their equal pay claimants are employed, after council officials’ scrapped proposals for a negotiated settlement of second wave equal pay claims with the joint claimant group.

Council officials informed representatives from GMB, Unison and Action 4 Equality that they will no longer work to an agreed timetable to reach a negotiated settlement but will instead bring to the table a non-negotiated offer, raising fears that the Council are working towards a Christmas inducement to members that will be significantly less than the value of the claims.

GMB has over 2,500 members in Cordia providing around the clock home care for 87,000 service users. Staff also deliver catering and cleaning services in schools and amenities across Glasgow City Council.
GMB Scotland Organiser Rhea Wolfson said: “We’ve had seventeen meetings between the joint claimant group and council officials since late last year and we haven’t even crossed the starting line into meaningful negotiation over our members’ claims.

Targets have been missed, deadlines have been ignored and now negotiations have been scrapped. We are no further forward to resolving these claims today than we were on the day of the first meeting. This is a total failure on the part of the council.

While these officials continue to duck the council's responsibility for years of discrimination, the final bill for the monies stolen from our members continues to rise into hundreds of millions of pounds, and possibly over a billion. The deception is shameful.

Our members’ patience has been exhausted. They want a fair and negotiated settlement of their equal pay claims within a reasonable timescale; not some half-baked bribe before Christmas offering far less than they are owed.
Without an immediate intervention from the council leadership, strike action in Cordia is inevitable because these women know their worth and they’ll fight for what they are owed.”

ENDS

Contact: GMB Scotland Organiser Rhea Wolfson on 07850 575023 or Peter Welsh, GMB Scotland Communications on 07976 447077.