Glasgow City Council has halted plans to dismiss and rehire about 23,000 non-teaching staff, pausing a fire-and-rehire exercise that had been set to hit one of Scotland’s largest council workforces while equal pay talks remained unresolved.
The pause follows Scottish Government intervention and discussions involving Unite, GMB and Unison. Talks are due to resume next week. The dispute centres on equal pay claims and the terms on which the council settles them.
Why the council stopped
Dismiss-and-rehire would have meant issuing notices to thousands of school support staff, cleaners, caterers, care workers and other non-teaching employees, then offering re-engagement on altered terms. For the council, the mechanism was a way to impose changes after negotiations stalled. For the unions, it was a line in the sand: a mass dismissal threat that would test members’ willingness to strike.
The Scottish Government intervention changed the arithmetic. The council now has a window to negotiate rather than force. That does not settle the equal pay dispute. It moves it back to the bargaining table, where the question is whether the council can find a deal that satisfies the unions and is affordable within its budget.
What is on the table
Unite, GMB and Unison are the three recognised unions for the affected staff. Their strength at the table is membership density across the council’s non-teaching workforce. Any settlement will need to be recommendable to members, not simply acceptable to council officials. A pause is not a withdrawal. It is a stay of execution while talks continue.
Equal pay claims in local government are rarely settled by headlines. They turn on job evaluation, back pay periods and the terms of any settlement. Those are the details that will decide whether the unions can recommend a deal to members.
The council’s political leadership must also count votes. Any final deal will still have to clear the council’s committee and budget processes. That means the arithmetic is not just in the negotiating room; it is in the chamber. If the pause holds, the focus turns to whether a framework can be agreed before the next scheduled talks.
What happens next
Talks resume next week. If they produce a deal, the dismissal notices stay in the drawer and the equal pay dispute moves towards settlement. If they do not, the council must decide whether to restart the fire-and-rehire process, seek further Scottish Government help, or change course. The unions have already shown they can coordinate across all three bodies; the council will be looking for a split in their position or a package that each can take back to members.
For 23,000 workers, the practical effect is immediate: no dismissal notices for now. But the underlying dispute remains. The calendar is now the negotiators’ friend and the council’s pressure point. Every week without a deal increases the cost of uncertainty and the political heat around the chamber.