United Kingdom - Equal pay victory for women council workers - April 30, 2010

Hundreds of women working as cleaners and care assistants, represented by the UNISON and GMB unions, have won an equal pay case against Birmingham City Council, the biggest municipality in the country. The Employment Tribunal agreed with the union’s case that the women had been unfairly denied bonuses that were paid to gardeners, refuse collectors and gravediggers, who are overwhelmingly male workers, worth up to 160% of their basic pay. The Tribunal will now go on to assess the amount of compensation to be paid to the employees in each case. The likely bill will run into several million pounds.

English: http://www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease_view.asp?id=1848; http://www.gmb.org.uk/newsroom/latest_news/gmb_wins_huge_equal_pay_case.aspx

This article was published in the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. It aims to facilitate information exchange between trade unions and to support the work of ETUC's collective bargaining committee. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. You may find further information on the ETUI atwww.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2009.