Glasgow Council re-grading strike goes into fourth day

More than 500 Glasgow Council social work assistants are entering their fourth day of strike action today in a dispute over job grading.

The Unison walkout started on Tuesday, with the assistants ­ known as social care workers ­ claiming that a job evaluation last year failed to acknowledge the complexity of their jobs.

The strike will continue until at least Monday, when Unison and the council next sit down for talks.

Unison said it was also balloting staff who work alongside social care workers on whether they should walk out in support of the strike and in protest against council’s attempts to reallocate social care worker’s tasks to other employees.

Unison said all social care workers should be a grade six on the councils job scale, rather than grade five, as they had been deemed. At the top of the scale this would amount to an extra £4,000 at grade six.

Members had initially planned to refuse all job tasks that Unison claimed exceeded grade five, such as completing reports for children¹s hearing panels or carrying out complex assessments for adults.

But when the council said it would consider anyone taking such action as being on strike members backed a straight walkout.

A council spokesperson said it had proposed a compromise at a meeting with Unison yesterday, involving the creation of a post of social care officer at grade six, which a number of social care workers could assume.

He added: “The details are still to be worked out but that’s the proposal on the table at this stage. We hope that a conclusion can be reached shortly.”

Related information:

Concerns over Glasgow pay review

Essential information on the social care workforce