Glasgow’s homelessness caseworkers will return to work this week after more than four months of strike action.

The council conceded defeat after a bitter battle with around seventy staff who fought for a pay rise.

Each of them will now get an initial annual increase of at least £1,000 - after an assessment - which will rise to £5,000 by 2018.

The local authority had previously resisted pleas for a salary uplift to grade six, which could cost around £350,000 a year.

Glasgow City Council’s Executive Member for Social Care, Councillor Malcolm Cunning, and Executive Member for Personnel, Councillor Matt Kerr, dug in during the protracted dispute.

Councillor Cunning said if he found £350,000 “under the settee” or if the Scottish Government handed him an “envelope with £350,000 in it” he would not beat a retreat.

This was a matter of principle, according to the head of social care.

At one point the council went on the offensive and threatened to cut the number of homelessness caseworkers by 30% in a move which would slash the staffing budget by more than £800,000.

As part of the proposed resolution selected staff would be given a pay rise but the caseworkers stood in solidarity and unanimously rejected the offer.

Shortly afterwards the council leader was dragged into the conflict when the SNP opposition demanded that Councillor Matheson “personally intervene” to see off the crisis.

However, the leader stood behind the position taken up by Councillor Cunning and Councillor Kerr.

Councillor Matheson also insisted that the strike was having “minimal impact” on homeless people who desperately needed the local authority to fulfil its legal duty and provide a bed for the night.

At the same time all three community casework offices in the Gorbals, Barlanark and Possilpark were closing early every day.

Notices placed in these offices said “acute staff shortages” meant they were “only able to deal with service users who require emergency temporary accommodation”.

Even that wasn’t entirely accurate, as I discovered when I presented as homeless as part of an investigation into the service and was turned away despite qualifying for a bed.

We’ll never know how many people had to sleep on the streets unnecessarily during the strike.

The collateral damage to the most vulnerable people in society is difficult to assess.

The council has now surrendered after a bruising battle which left the caseworkers bloodied but unbowed.

But in the aftermath many are left wondering why the council chose to drag it out, only to unexpectedly wave the white flag after seventeen long weeks.

It’s unlikely it would have even escalated to a strike when former head of personnel and trade unionist, the late Councillor George Ryan, was around.

One of many reasons why he is still sorely missed inside the city chambers since his untimely death two years ago when he was aged only 51.