GLASGOW'S janitors have been accused of "hidden agendas" by the council leader after rejecting a pay deal.

Cordia, has withdrawn its pay offer to jannies after unions rejected a new scheme that would see 30 "operational clusters", ending the system of one janitor per school.

The arm's-length council firm's proposal would have meant the loss of 33 jobs from the 219 janitors employed in schools across Glasgow.

Cordia, however, said the reforms would mean a 20 per cent pay hike for promoted co-ordinator posts and a six per cent hike for new janitor posts.

Bosses also said janitors' working week would be reduced from 41.5 hours to 40 hours.

Frank McAveety, the leader of Glasgow City Council said: “It mystifies me that in these days of local government cuts an offer that guarantees increased wages across the board for all jannies, for a shorter working week, has been rejected by union leaders.

"You could not make this up.

"Maybe there are hidden agendas at work.”

Cordia claims there is a need to modernise janitor services across the city schools to make them more efficient and modern.

Unions dispute that the new structure will be effective and criticise job losses.

Janitors have been involved in strikes since last year in opposition to the proposals, which parents also object to.

In the past week there have been parent and pupil protests outside Shawlands Primary and Battlefield Primary against the scheme.

Parents fear removing dedicated school janitors will cause health and safety problems.

Cordia defends its proposals by saying there would be no compulsory redundancies, all janitors would have a pay increase and a reduced working week.

The company said progress was made with the GMB union and that it expected Unite to accept the pay deal but Unison leaders have stood firm.

Andy Clark, Cordia’s director of services, said: “It’s unfortunate we have reached this impasse.

"But we could not implement the reforms without the co-operation of all the unions involved.

"We will now have to find other ways of making savings in the service.”

A spokesman for Unison said: "Unison members firmly believed that the clustering model was unworkable and in recent days this view has been overwhelmingly supported and clearly stated by many parents councils. 

"While some wage increases were on offer, the figures quoted are exaggerated. 

"Either way, Unison members were not prepared to accept the clustering model.  

"Our members' agenda has always been to secure a working context payment and defend the current set-up of one school, one janitor. 

"Alongside the city’s parents we appear to have secured the latter and the fight for a working context payment goes on."