AS one insider phrased it, the optics aren’t good.

During Glasgow’s equal pay strikes last month, refuse workers from the city’s nine cleansing depots were widely praised for standing in solidarity with their 8000 female colleagues.

Their action - to walk out, rather than cross picket lines - was especially bold following two days of mixed messages from their bosses.

First, cleansing staff were issued with a warning letter telling them that any unauthorised industrial action would lead to disciplinary procedures being taken.

Of course, that would have involved an SNP administration implementing Conservative anti-strike legislation and so the warning was swiftly withdrawn.

On the days of the strikes, however, relations were notably tense. Staff speak of different rules being applied to different workers. So, in some cases, refuse staff were allowed to take on duties that would avoid crossing any picket lines. They, it is claimed, were paid.

In other instances, men were not given alternative duties and were sent home unpaid.

At three depots police were called by senior staff who claimed picket lines had become rowdy or that strikers were behaving unreasonable.

Police made no arrests and reportedly found everything to be in order.

Whichever way you slice it, this was unauthorised industrial action. Some might say the men are lucky that Glasgow City Council is willing to turn a blind eye.

Officials had little choice. Following through with threats of punishment would have looked disastrous for a local authority trying to placate 8000 angry women.

But how does it look for union officials - from the same union, GMB Scotland, that has, by its own admission, previously failed its women members - to ask for payments for male workers while on unofficial strike while the women staff accept that they will lose two days' pay?

Senior GMB Scotland staff are clear that this is not a tactic they wish to pursue. They are very keen for all parties to move forward together.

What is clear is that something is badly wrong in the cleansing department, that relations have broken down at a time when the local authority very much needs its "council family" to be pulling together.

"We do not want this to get out of control," reads the GMB official's letter to senior council staff. Nor do the unions and nor, it is obvious, does Glasgow City Council.

Asking for payment is a clumsy move that shows a lack of understanding of the issues that lead the city to where it is now.

The men want paid. Well, so do the women and they're still waiting.