Court upholds female Glasgow City Council workers pay challenge

Thousands of women workers at Scotland's largest council are set to receive extra cash after a senior judge ruled in their favour in a long running pay dispute.

Staff at Glasgow City Council instructed lawyers to go to the Court of Session in Edinburgh after being excluded from receiving payments which were being made to men.

The females acted because male workers doing similar jobs to them had been receiving large bonus payments whilst they did not.

The women believed that they had been discriminated against and launched legal action through their trade Unions, Unison and the GMB.

An employment appeal tribunal initially ruled in favour of the woman. But lawyers acting for Glasgow City Council appealed the decision at the Court of Session.

On Tuesday, Scotland's second most senior judge, Lady Dorrian upheld the decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal.

In a written judgement issued at the court, the Lord Justice Clerk wrote: "The appeal will be refused."

The legal challenge originated following a workplace pay and benefits review conducted by the council in 2006.

Following the review, the council concluded that bonus payments which were being made to mostly male, manual workers would no longer be paid.

As a consequence of this decision to no longer pay bonuses, the male workers were given a benefit of so called "pay protection".

The council believed their would allow them to maintain their then present earnings into the future.

In the judgment, Lady Dorrian wrote: "The issue arising in these appeals relates to the question of the pre WPBR bonus elements of pay earned by certain manual, mostly male workers.

"These bonuses were lost as a result of the job evaluation scheme, with the consequence that the employees so affected were treated as 'in detriment' and given the benefit of pay protection.

"They are referred to as being 'red circled'.

"The appellant's payment protection scheme consisted of three elements: transitional protection payments, assimilation whereby a worker in detriment would be assimilated to a new pay grade that would at least match the pre workplace pay and benefits review reckonable earnings and thus minimise his notional reduction in pay; and third, steps whereby employees would be assisted by the appellant to increase their skills and move up the grades using Employee Development. The latter is designed to allow 'maintenance of their earnings in the long term'".

However, the consequence of this policy was to create a situation in which female employees in similar positions weren't given the same protections.

The women argued that this policy breached the Equal Pay Act 1970.

Lawyers acting for the females claimed that in order to comply with the legislation, the women should have had their pay matched with the men who were enjoying payment protection.

However, the council's legal team argued that the policy didn't breach against the law.

They argued that the policy was a legitimate way of implementing a national agreement from 1999 in which all council employees would be placed under the one payment scheme.

An employment tribunal originally ruled in favour of Glasgow City Council. However, an employment appeal tribunal overturned the decision and ruled in favour of the women.

This prompted Glasgow City Council to appeal to the Court of Session.

On Tuesday, judges Lady Dorrian, Lady Paton and Lord Menzies ruled in favour of the women.

The judges ruled that that the original employment tribunal had not applied the correct legal test when considering the case.

Lady Dorrian wrote: "There was no evidence before the employment tribunal that the appellant had even considered the position of the claimants. No consideration was given to the possibility of offering pay protection to the claimants and no material placed before the employment tribunal to attempt a justification of the exclusion on the basis of cost was advanced (not surprisingly since the issue had not even been considered)."