GMB Wins Huge Equal Pay Case

Posted on Tuesday, April 27, 2010

An Employment Tribunal in Birmingham today found in favour of 1400 women represented by the GMB union in their equal pay claims against Birmingham City Council, the largest local authority in the land and run by a Tory Administration. The Tribunal will now go on to assess the level of award to the women which lawyers estimate to be worth around £30 million.

Brian Strutton GMB National Secretary said "We’ve been fighting for equal pay rights for our members in councils for years and one of the worst offenders has been Conservative led Birmingham City Council. They’ve known for years that they owe equal pay to their low paid women workers but instead of paying up they’ve tried every trick in the lawyers book to try to delay. In fact the judge said the Council had "acted unreasonably" in the defences it was trying to run and it has wasted millions of pounds of taxpayers money in doing so. But we’ve persevered and we’ve won. GMB women members in Birmingham can now expect very substantial payouts indeed, probably worth £30 million."

 from www.gmb.org.uk