THOUSANDS of council workers will strike over equal pay later this month hitting schools and home care services for the elderly.

Unison and GMB will stage a 48-hour strike on October 23 and 24 over what the unions claim is a failure to make significant progress on the equal pay claim settlements.

Unions say that almost one year since the court ruling that that the council must pay out and a timetable of talks this year little has moved.

The council said a strike cannot achieve anything as unions agreed to the negotiating timescale which is ongoing.

The strike will hit home care, schools and nurseries, education and cleaning and catering services.

Primary and Additional Support for Leaning schools will likely shut or partially shut and Cordia home care services for the elderly and disabled severely affected.

Around 8,000 workers will be involved in the strike which will have implications for people receiving care at home and people waiting to leave hospital and return home.

For the most vulnerable who require the maximum four visits a day it could mean emergency calls to 999 and hospital admission.

Rhea Wolfson, GMB Scotland Organiser, said: “There has been no significant progress on the six areas that make up the claims.”

The areas include what jobs are considered to be of comparable status, additional payments for anti social work, payment protection, interest, job evaluation and parity of settlements across the claimants.

Ms Wolfson added: “Eight thousand people are going on strike after a long process of having faith and being let down. We need to rebuilt trust.”

Brian Smith, Unison Glasgow Branch Secretary, said: “We are at the stage where we have had the ruling for a year and nothing has been agreed.

“We need significant progress on the elements that would make u[p final payments.”

Sources said the strike is political action to cover up past failings on the part of unions to represent their members.

A Council source said: “It’s telling that in all the years that previous administrations refused to give way on this, there was never once strike action taken. Only now, potentially only three months away from a settlement being agreed, are services for the most vulnerable being used as a pawn.

“In reality the strike is about unions whitewashing both their own role in discriminatory pay systems and their strategic mistake in approaching this process as a campaign and not negotiation.”

A spokesman for Glasgow City Council said: “The demands being made by UNISON and the GMB cannot be met. They know that.

“Unions agreed to the current timescale as part of the negotiations which have been ongoing for several months – and it is simply wrong to move to strike action when they know that it will not and cannot achieve anything.”