Equal pay claims

Birmingham City Council has lost its appeal against an equal pay claim made by 170 women and 4 men. The Council argued that the claim was outside of the six-month time limit.

 A Court has ruled that 170 women, and four men, who used to work at Birmingham City Council can proceed with equal pay claims in the High Court. The publicity about this case has raised concern with other county councils who have similar cases pending.

The Equal Pay Act came into force in the 1970s, following a well published dispute between women machinists and Ford motor company. I recently watched (again) the film about this historic event. I am struck that despite nearly 20 years of the Act coming into force, and therefore law, we still find ourselves in a situation where women (or men) are not paid the same for work of equal worth. The case has helpfully put the spotlight on this issue.

In the learning and skills sector, many providers have carried out equal pay reviews to check that they are not falling foul of this aspect of the law. However, I have found that not everyone has carried out a gender pay gap to determine if they have such a gap in their organisation.

The EHRC has said that it expects providers who are ‘listed’ (ie subject to the specific duties) with more than 150 staff, to carry out and publish the details of their gender pay gap. You can find more information about this in my ‘specific duties’ briefing on my resources page.

For most organisations with a gender pay gap, this will be because there is an imbalance of gender within management roles compared to lower paid and part time roles. If this is true for you, then you need to have an equality objective in place with actions to show how you are addressing this gap.

To download a PDF copy of the court judgement, click here