Council leader Susan Aitken has hailed the £770m equal pay settlement as a “cause for celebration” as councillors welcomed the “landmark” agreement.
Glasgow City Council passed a motion which thanked all those who had worked on the deal and praised the women workers who fought for justice.
But it was not agreed unanimously as Labour claimed the equal pay issue was being used as a “political football”.
The settlement was required after thousands of mainly women workers were paid unfairly. Work on a new pay and grading system is “significantly advanced” and expected to be in place by October next year to end the discrimination.
The final tranche of payments to claimants are expected to land in bank accounts from early next year, and Cllr Aitken said a “landmark moment” had been reached.
“It’s been a long time and a hard road but the end is in sight,” the council leader added. “It’s a cause for celebration, celebration for justice done, for women finally seen and heard, for their battle won, and for a good job done.
“If all of those years of refusing to listen to the women who were saying it wasn’t right, of doubling down, of piling insult upon insult, was perhaps the biggest worst thing this council has done, then the work over the past five years to bring us to this point has been among the biggest best thing.
“It has been a slog, it has been fraught, it has been painful at times, but it has also seen extraordinary, dedicated, painstaking and creative work by officers of this council and by the claimants’ representatives.”
Cllr Aitken also said the “price of discrimination is a high one and Glasgow will be paying it for a long time”. The bill will be settled through a strategy, described as “ingenious” by the council leader, which will see buildings, including the city chambers and Kelvingrove Art Gallery, sold to a council-owned firm then leased back.
“To be 100% clear, no one but no one blames the claimants for any financial loss to this city,” the council leader added. “The blame lies squarely with people who could have put an end to this years ago.”
A Labour amendment said the current pay and grading scheme, which is being replaced, was “agreed unanimously, as was the decision to suspend legal action and reach a negotiated settlement in early 2018”.
“The only strike action ever taken due to the equal pay dispute was in October 2018, under this current administration, with trade unions citing the administration’s deviation from the negotiations timetable,” it added.
Cllr Cecilia O’Lone, Labour, said: “If there’s anyone in this chamber who should be hanging their head in shame today, it is those councillors who choose to use this issue as just another political football.”
She added: “If we were sitting here right now and given that legal advice, as it was at the time, we would agree, because we don’t know any better.”
Cllr Robert Mooney, Labour, said it was “an inconvenient truth” that workers had walked out under the SNP administration. “They’d had enough of broken promises and attempts to delay from this administration,” he added.
Cllr Aitken said the Labour amendment was “shameful”. “This is your chance to show some humility, accept some responsibility.”
She added: “I got exactly the same legal advice as you did, it’s not a secret that senior officers and I didn’t see eye to eye at the outset of this journey.
“The legal advice I got was to continue to appeal, to continue to litigate. I made a political decision, a leadership decision, to do something different.”
Conservative group leader, Cllr Thomas Kerr, said he was “dismayed and disappointed” with the tone of the Labour amendment.
He added: “They are right when they say the previous pay and grading system came with the support of all political parties, but the difference is we on these benches, and other benches, accepted a mistake in order to rectify the problem, while Labour fought to stop that happening.”
There were 46 votes for SNP motion, adjusted by the Greens, and 35 for the Labour amendment.
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