WOMEN workers at Glasgow City Council have voted in favour of strikes over a long-running equal pay dispute worth £500 million, Unison has announced.

In a ballot of almost 9,000 members, 96 per cent voted on a turnout of about 52 per cent to take further industrial action, the public-sector union announced on Monday.  

Yesterday many of the workers marked International Women’s Day with a George Square protest, which heard calls for councillors to maintain current arrangements for payouts.

Ahead of the demo, Unison branch equality officer Lesley Scoffield said that the union’s members are protesting in the best traditions of the annual event, saying “yet another strike led by women in this city” is coming. 

The current dispute also involves GMB union members, who have already backed industrial action, and Unite, whose ballot closes on Monday.

It centres on a £500 million agreement in 2019, backed by staff, that settled pay claims up to March 2018 and included a new wage and grading system to rectify unequal pay issues. 

Since then, about 5,500 new claims have been lodged for the period prior to March 2018, while nearly 20,000 workers are waiting on settlements for applications subsequent to that date. 

Unions fear that new claimants are not going to receive payouts based on the terms of the 2019 deal after the council recently said it may not be able to settle further claims until 2024. 

A council spokesperson claimed it is committed to resolving equal pay claims:  “A paper will go to committee this week seeking authority to make offers on new claims.”

Officials are still proposing to make offers that are “firmly rooted” in the 2019 agreement, the spokesperson said.