Glasgow City Council refuse workers ordered to repay £40,000 wages error

Refuse workers at Glasgow City Council have been told to repay £40,000 after a payroll error led to them receiving a higher wage for several years.

An internal audit revealed that the five staff members had been inadvertently paid extra amounts for contractual overtime on a monthly basis.

The error is understood to go back up to four years in some cases, with one individual earning about £15,000 extra.

Chris Mitchell, the GMB convenor for Glasgow’s cleansing and refuse workers, said the people involved have essentially “taken a pay cut” due to the repayment plan, which requires them to pay £40 to £70 a month.

He said: “The payslips are hard to understand for anybody. You’d need to be a Philadelphia lawyer to understand them, and even at that, it’d be hard.

“For example, contractual overtime payments, you wouldn’t know it on the payslip unless you were already looking for it.

“There have been a number of issues over the past two years. It’s happening far too much. These guys got the first paycheck all those years ago, and it’s been ongoing.”

Mr Mitchell said the workers are due to pay back thousands of pounds, dating back nearly 15 years.

“An overpayment of £224 is now instantly removed from a paycheck. In addition, they now need to pay back an extra £70 a month”, he explained.

“They have basically taken a pay cut.”

Glasgow City Council have been contacted for comment.