‘Equal Pay or we Walk Away’: Litigation and Industrial Action in the Glasgow City Council Equal Pay Dispute

Galt, Frances C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-7365-4176 (2025) ‘Equal Pay or we Walk Away’: Litigation and Industrial Action in the Glasgow City Council Equal Pay Dispute. Industrial Relations Journal. pp. 1-12. ISSN 0019-8692

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Abstract

This article demonstrates the uneven development of trade union strategies on equal pay within UK local government through an examination of the shift from litigation to industrial action in the Glasgow City Council equal pay dispute. It analyses new oral history interviews with key actors involved in the Glasgow City Council dispute (union officials, grassroots activists, lawyers) to identify four critical incidents between 2016 and 2018 that prompted trade unions (particularly the GMB) to prioritise equal pay. It considers the extent to which equal pay legislation has acted as a resource for or barrier to achieving equal pay and concludes that the combination of legal and industrial strategies was central to reaching a settlement in the Glasgow City Council dispute.