Care workers’ test case move over ‘lost wages’
Political Correspondent HOME care workers i n Glasgow are taking action to recoup lost wages in a dispute over working anti-social hours.
Union officials, who are acting for staff, are pursuing a test case at the Employment Tribunal in a bid to recover around £1500 a year for low paid staff.
Around 1000 workers in the city are understood to be affected by a grading system, which the union says has led to staff being underpaid since 2015.
The dispute involved changes to Non Standard Working Pattern Hours, where staff are on duty outwith 6am to 8pm and at weekends.
Then union says Cordia bosses have failed to resolve a longstanding collective grievance and it will now go to the Employment Tribunal with a test case.
Allison Cairns, GMB Scotland Organiser, said: “It is deeply disappointing that Cordia management refuses to settle this dispute in-house and we have been left with no choice but to pursue the proper remuneration for our hard-working carers through the courts.”
She said the staff were given a “Hobson’s choice” of accepting the reforms and new shift patterns with less pay than they were entitled to or find another job .
he union said Tthe deal means that home carers staff are required to work more than seven hours at weekends and be available when the service requires them.
Ms Cairns added: “If we want professional levels of care then we need to start properly recognising and rewarding care workers as the professionals that they are. Unfortunately this is another example of pay inequality affecting our carers; a workforce that is exclusively female and who care for the most vulnerable in our city, often working more than seventy hours a week across split shifts and anti-social hours.
“They deserve better than to be treated like the poor the relations of the ‘Glasgow Family’.”
A spokesman for Cordia, said: “1200 staff agreed to the new working arrangements on a voluntary basis in 2015.
“We are aware that a small number of staff have initiated the grievance process in relation to working time arrangements since then and we are working to resolve these. We are satisfied the review of working patterns, which fully involved the trade unions, came to a fair and appropriate conclusion.”