Women demanding the council settles the equal pay claim protested outside the chambers calling for action now.

Unison and GMB members said the SNP campaigned on equal pay before the council election in May and said they want the promises honoured now.

The council has sought leave to appeal a court ruling it that it must pay out on equal pay claims.

The final figure to settle the claims is estimated to run into hundreds of millions of pounds.

Council leader Susan Aitken has said the council will settle over equal pay but that it was a complex ruling and that procedures had to be gone through first, which includes seeking leave to appeal, but that doesn’t meant he council will appeal the ruling.

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First Minister Nicola Sturgeon gave a commitment at the SNP Conference in Glasgow earlier this month that the party would deliver equal pay.

It has not been stated how any final bill could be financed or how long it would take.

However the protesters said the time to deliver was now.

they are angry that almost six months since the SNP was elected to run the council for the first time they are still waiting for the claims to be settled.

Mary Dawson of Unison said: “Out city fathers have relied on women to keep this city running. The people who make Glasgow are the women in the city who doing the menial jobs in the past that some of the male members didn’t want to do.

“For many years our low paid workers, cleaners, carers have not been getting paid what they should.

“If it wasn’t for these women workers this city would be in some state.

“Our councillors think they can keep us hanging on and not pay the money. It is time to pay out.”

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Dozens protested noisily outside as the SNP group met inside the building.

Jennifer McCarey, area organiser for Unison, said: Many people put their cross in the box at the election because the SNP were for pay equality.

All we have had so far is words. We need those words turned into action.

“At the moment the only commitment we have got is they are going to court to ask for leave to appeal.”

In August the council lost a case when the Court of Session decided that a re-grading system implemented in 2007 was not favourable to women.

It found jobs like carers, mainly done by women were not paid the same as jobs mainly done by men like refuse collection.

The court said the council failed to prove it had acted within equal pay legislation.

There are thousands of cases where women are claiming compensation for being paid less than male counterparts.

Some are being taken forward by Unison and GMB and some with a private lawyer under the name Action 4 Equality Scotland.

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The council said it is talking with unions with the aim of working towards a settlement.

Susan Aitken council, leader said: “The City Government was elected on a commitment to improve industrial relations in Glasgow City Council, including resolving inherited outstanding equal pay cases.

“We have already done more in the last six months to put that right than had been achieved in the last decade. We are round the table and we are talking.”