Glasgow Pauses Its Plan to Dismiss and Re-engage 23,000 Staff
The council has agreed to pause the fire-and-rehire scheme it confirmed this morning, the BBC has been told, after online talks with the GMB, Unison and Unite chaired by the Deputy First Minister, Jenny Gilruth. Dismissal letters due to reach staff will not now be issued, and negotiations resume early next week. Under the plan, 63% of affected staff would have gained and 11% lost out, with the largest single drop around £11,500.
The calendar did most of the persuading. From 1 January, dismissing an employee for refusing a contract change becomes automatically unfair under the new employment legislation, which turned a difficult industrial-relations decision into a narrowing legal window — and made the optics impossible for a council to defend. The Scottish Secretary, Douglas Alexander, called the law “the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation” and told the leadership to “get back around the table today and find a better way forward”. The underlying equal-pay liability has not moved an inch, and the unions remain split, with Unison’s Sylvia Haughey insisting “we haven’t betrayed anyone… we are out fighting for our members”. Watch next week’s talks, and whether the ballots still go ahead.