Asda 'faces £100m equal pay fight' after tribunal case

[Taf]

There's a lot of difference between low physical-effort employment in warm and comfortable offices, or light cleaning jobs, and physically demanding roles in other (often harsher) conditions.

And that is why you will (often) find higher percentages of women in the former, and men in the latter.

Parity of pay in the former should be automatic, but not in the latter if you are not physically able to complete exactly the same tasks in the same time. But not all men and women are created equal, so there will be circumstances where your gender alone will not make you the best choice for the job.

[rhyds]

A lot of councils have been caught out by these kinds of cases. Birmingham City Council even had to sell off the NEC to pay for the massive back pay award it got lumbered with.

In that specific case, the council tried it on by introducing a grading scheme which put home helps on the same pay scale as bin men, but then adding bonuses and attendance allowances to the bin men's contracts while not doing so for the home helps. The existence of the pay grading scheme pretty much settled the argument over whether home helps and bin men were doing work of equal value - clearly they were, or they wouldn't have been on an equal pay scale. It could yet cost Birmingham £1bn to sort all that out. Though apparently they have never explicitly admitted that the sale of the NEC was to cover it.

[Taf]

Cardiff Council has been shedding jobs by the thousands. Some say it is to reduce the pension bill, others say it's because equality pay could almost bankrupt the city. All the lost jobs are going to private firms.

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by Chris

In that specific case, the council tried it on by introducing a grading scheme which put home helps on the same pay scale as bin men, but then adding bonuses and attendance allowances to the bin men's contracts while not doing so for the home helps. The existence of the pay grading scheme pretty much settled the argument over whether home helps and bin men were doing work of equal value - clearly they were, or they wouldn't have been on an equal pay scale. It could yet cost Birmingham £1bn to sort all that out. Though apparently they have never explicitly admitted that the sale of the NEC was to cover it.

The underlying problem was that the pay grading system didn't allow for DIFFERENCES. The jobs were very DIFFERENT, but it was impossible to pay differently using the simplistic local government pay grading system.

There was a case where 2 groups on the same pay grade were paid differently. The mainly men group had their annual pay cut to match the mainly women group. But as the men were expected to work LONGER hours on MORE days, their hourly rate was LESS. So much for equality.