Forum Topic

Equal pay whatever one's gender

Can someone tell me what is L.B.Hounslow's track record re equal pay? Radio 4's 'Today' program tells that Birmingham City have just lost a marathon court dispute, and have to re-imburse past and present female employees; and that with costs it will eventually have set them back £1.1billion. That 10 years back, about half of the nation's L.A.'s had an unequal pay policy; and there are some still holding out on the dispute. Google reveals nothing of Hounslow's history and I wondered if someone could enlighten me.

Glyn Gordon Collins ● 4399d1 Comments

I'm no expert (either on Hounslow's position or the issue in general) but my reading of it is:-- The Brum case was actually decided back in 2012. It's in the news now more because the Council have mooted selling assets such as the NEC to deal with the financial impact at a time when they also have to cope with £800M of reduction in government grant together with frozen council tax.- Birmingham seem to have had particularly egregious arrangements where they had pretended for some years that equal pay had been introduced whilst paying substantial bonuses for 'male type' jobs but no bonuses for 'female type' jobs on the same grade. I'm not sure if other councils - or Hounslow in particular - did this but my guess is we would have heard about it if they did.- The pundits who we see discussing Brum are a bit vague about whether other councils have a problem but by implication it seems any problems are relatively modest and mostly in the midlands. It seems that most employers have dealt with this historic problem - where it existed - over the years. It's worth bearing in mind the enormousness of Bham City Council. They have 50,000 employees and are the largest local authority, not just in the UK but in Europe (apparently!)

Guy Lambert ● 4397d