23,000 staff, 24 hours: Glasgow's fire-and-rehire reversal

HR leaders watching Glasgow City Council move to fire and rehire 23,000 non-teaching staff — then abandon the plan within 24 hours — are witnessing a masterclass in how not to resolve an equal-pay dispute. The episode shows what happens when a pay-and-grading impasse is escalated into a threat of mass dismissal: union mobilisation, political intervention, and a workforce trust deficit that outlasts any single announcement. For people teams, the lesson is that restructuring through unilateral contract variation carries costs no spreadsheet captures.

An SNP-led Glasgow City Council bid to dismiss and re-engage 23,000 non-teaching employees collapsed within a single day, crystallising the legal, political and workforce-relations toxicity of 'fire and rehire' in the UK. The council announced on Thursday 24 September 2026 that it would sack its non-teaching workforce and rehire them on new contracts after talks with three trade unions broke down over a long-running equal-pay dispute. Within 24 hours the plan was paused following intervention by Deputy First Minister Jenny Gilruth, and on Sunday 27 September Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander used the Labour conference in Liverpool to declare that 'fire and rehire is a pernicious policy that is a scandalous way to treat any worker.'

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HR leaders watching Glasgow City Council move to fire and rehire 23,000 non-teaching staff — then abandon the plan within 24 hours — are witnessing a masterclass in how not to resolve an equal-pay dispute.

The gambit sits inside one of Scotland's most consequential equal-pay sagas. Glasgow City Council has faced years of claims from predominantly female workforces — home carers, cleaners and catering staff — who argue their roles were systematically undervalued relative to male-dominated comparator jobs. The dispute's scale is structural: 23,000 staff represent the overwhelming majority of the council's non-teaching workforce, so the announcement amounted to a near-total contractual reset for the city's public services rather than a marginal adjustment. The fire-and-rehire plan was an attempt to impose a pay-and-grading restructure unilaterally after negotiation stalled, effectively using the threat of mass dismissal to force new contract terms. That framing — restructuring dressed as dismissal — is precisely what UK regulators and tribunals have moved to curb.

Legally, the episode lands in a materially harder environment than even two years ago. A statutory Code of Practice on dismissal and re-engagement has been in force since 18 July 2024, requiring employers to consult meaningfully and exhaust alternatives before threatening fire and rehire; employment tribunals can uplift compensation by up to 25% for unreasonable non-compliance. Separately, the Employment Rights Bill, progressing through Westminster, would render fire and rehire automatically unfair save for narrow exceptions. For a council contemplating the dismissal of 23,000 staff, collective consultation obligations under section 188 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 — which can require up to 45 days of consultation and expose employers to protective awards of up to 90 days' pay per employee — represent an additional, potentially enormous liability.