Labour’s candidate to lead Glasgow City Council has apologised for his party’s role in the long-running equal pay scandal.
Malcolm Cunning said he understood why some female workers denied fair wages feel let down by Labour.
He also indicated that the local authority may have to remortgage more properties in a bid to meet outstanding claims.
Councillor Cunning, who first joined Labour in the late 1970s, is going head-to-head with the SNP’s Susan Aitken to run Glasgow after May’s election.
The SNP took control of the city chambers in 2017 after decades of Labour rule and Cunning is determined to win back the city.
Central to his party’s manifesto is addressing what one trade union leader described as the “filthy” state of the city.
Cunning, who represents the Linn ward, said: “It’s cleanliness, it’s bin uplift, it’s rubbish on the street, it’s potholes.”
“We certainly are looking to invest both money and people into addressing those issues.
"We’ve lost 269 frontline staff from cleansing in the city in the past five years. We will put 250 as a minimum back in. We will also invest £6m over three years in a cleaner, greener Glasgow project.”
He is also critical of Aitken’s leadership: “Over the past five years councillor Aitken has been particularly cloth-eared, both to the concerns of citizens and, perhaps even more harmful, some of the stuff that she’s said about our own staff and our own trade unions has actually undermined the work of the council.”
However, the legacy of Labour’s record running the city is also an issue in May’s election.
When Cunning’s party last ran Glasgow, the Labour administration failed to resolve the thousands of equal pay claims made by female council workers.
Aitken’s administration, by contrast, came up with a partial solution that involved remortgaging major venues.
Cunning said of former Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard’s apology on behalf of his party: "I think Richard was right to say that we made a mistake and to apologise for the difficulties that it created, yes.”
Asked if he would also apologise for the mistakes made, he said: “I apologise for what happened.”
He said of Labour’s handling of the issue: “It was a genuine attempt to resolve what was already accepted to be an issue with equal pay.
“We then landed up in a legal quagmire that lasted for years and if we could go back and do it differently, I would love to be able to do that. But a decision was made in good faith.”
He added: “I’ve spoken to my constituents, some of whom are still angry. I absolutely recognise there are some women who are no longer with us. I’ve spoken to family members whose mother was a care worker and died six years ago.
“I absolutely understand that anger.”
Cunning believes the solution to the remaining multi-million equal pay bill lies in the earlier remortgaging plan: “We are still sitting on properties that are not part of that process. How many and the value of them I’m not privy to that information.”
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has attracted criticism for saying he is against any coalitions with the Tories or SNP in local government after May.
Cunning agrees with Sarwar: “Here in Glasgow, we are not interested in a coalition.
“We are in this to form the administration, either as a majority, or as the SNP have reasonably successfully done in political terms, though not in delivery terms, they have run for the past two years an administration in this city with 35 councillors. So why can’t we?”
Despite wanting to run Glasgow, Cunning confirms he would not be in the job for the long term - and suggested he could stand down as leader after three or four years.
"I have always indicated that I am likely not to stand as a councillor in the next council election, because I will be 70 the week before the next council election," he added.
"And at some stage of the process, it is likely, if I am elected leader of the council, that there will be a handover at some point before the next election.”
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