Glasgow City Council leader Ricky Bell has refused to rule out using fire-and-rehire tactics to resolve the long-running equal pay dispute, prompting Labour to accuse him of threatening his own workers weeks before Christmas.
Bell, who took charge of Scotland's largest local authority earlier this year, said in an interview with the Record that all options would have to be considered if trade unions block a proposed new pay structure. The council previously faced backlash in September when it warned 23,000 workers they would be dismissed and rehired on new contracts if an agreement was not reached.
Labour criticises threat
Scottish Labour local government spokesman Joe Fagan said: "We are weeks away from Christmas and the new leader of Glasgow City Council is essentially threatening his own workers with fire and rehire unless they sign up to his deals."
Fagan added: "The UK Labour government will make fire and rehire illegal in the New Year. It beggars' belief that Ricky Bell continues to keep this threat on the table." He also noted that Glasgow has been short-changed to the tune of £357m by the SNP government in Edinburgh since 2014, urging Bell to ask his party why they have taken an axe to local government finances.
Council's position
Bell warned the Unite, Unison and GMB unions "I don't have another penny to give" and claimed the council would eventually run out of money to pay a growing compensation bill caused by a previous pay structure being found to be discriminatory.
Asked if he may be forced to adopt fire and rehire tactics again, Bell said: "The difficulty is we're trapped between two places right now. I'm someone who doesn't believe in fire and rehire. I think it's an unscrupulous thing to do. But that's because most people are doing it to reduce people's terms and conditions."
Bell added: "That's not what we're doing - we are doing it because our existing scheme is illegal. And if the UK Government brings in legislation, to outlaw fire and rehire, I don't know where we go then - because there isn't a route out of this if we can't convince the unions to vote for it, and we can't fire and rehire them all, then we're in a really difficult bind."
Glasgow City Council faces effective bankruptcy unless it can resolve the equal pay row, which stems from a pay structure found to be discriminatory.
