UNION leaders were today set to hold a crucial meeting with the city council to discuss measures to modernise pay agreements for its 20,000 staff.
The proposals include the introduction of 12 broad pay grades, which the council said would lead to around 20 per cent of staff seeing a reduction in their normal pay after a period of three years.
The local authority said that 80 per cent of its
staff would not lose out, with around a fifth of those gaining from the proposals.
However, the package would "significantly change" the terms and conditions, pay and grading for most of its staff, the council said.
The package has been drawn up following consultation with the Unite, Unison and GMB unions over the past year. But Union leaders criticised the council for the way it had briefed members of staff on its proposals.
Unison's Kevin Duguid said he was "disappointed" the council had been briefing staff rather than talking directly with the unions.
He said: "The situation from our perspective is that we are awaiting the final proposals. We anticipate that we will get them today.
"The council sent out a briefing note to staff last week, but it doesn't really provide a lot of detail about the package."
Moves to modernise and simplify pay arrangements for public sector workers are being carried out across the country. Edinburgh City Council has gone further than some employers who have simply reviewed "single status" agreements relating to the disparity in pay between men and woman.
City council leader Jenny Dawe said: "For some time now the council has been working on a hugely significant project to establish fair and equitable pay and grading arrangements for staff.
"Modernising Pay was set up to honour our legal obligations under "single status" but we have gone much further by developing a comprehensive package of terms and conditions, pay and grading, which rewards staff for their contribution to the organisation.
"We are now at a stage where we can share these proposals with staff.
Last week the Evening News reported that a pay freeze is one of the options being considered by council chiefs to plug a £92 million black hole in the local authority's finances.
Council chiefs have already agreed to a 2.5 per cent pay rise for all staff this year but are now looking at a number of scenarios which could see non-teaching council staff facing a pay freeze in 2010-11 and the city's 3,400 teachers having their pay frozen in 2011-12. Projected pay awards for the rest of the next four years would range between 1 and 2.5 per cent.
