Women can bring compensation claims

London: More women could bring compensation claims for equal pay before the High Court following an important ruling by the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

The UK’s highest court ruled in favour of 174 former employees of Birmingham City Council — mostly women employed as cooks, cleaners and care staff — who had alleged that the council failed to provide benefits and other payments given to staff in male-dominated jobs such as refuse collectors.

The former workers could have brought their claims in the employment tribunal but this has strict time limits for bringing lawsuits. It usually takes cases only up to six months after someone has left their job.

The 170 women and four men formerly employed by the council instead lodged their lawsuits with the High Court, which by contrast allows up to six years to bring a claim. Birmingham had asked the High Court to dismiss the claims, arguing they should have been brought in the employment tribunal.

However, the Court of Appeal and now the Supreme Court has sided with the former employees, meaning they can now bring lawsuits in the High Court instead.

Employment lawyers say the ruling could have implications for other workers wanting to lodge claims.

Leigh Day & Co, the law firm which acted for the workers, called the ruling “historic” and said it effectively extended the time limit for equal pay claims from six months to six years, the biggest change to equal pay legislation since it was introduced in 1970, with huge implications for thousands of workers.

It said that a further 1,000 claims were pending in Birmingham alone as well as thousands of other potential claims around the country.

The Supreme Court was told that, in 2007 and 2008, tens of thousands of pounds were paid to female council employees to compensate them as well as other cases taken to employment tribunals.

However, because of the six-month deadline for taking cases to employment tribunals, many former employees were not eligible to bring lawsuits.

Historically male-dominated jobs — refuse collectors, street sweepers and gravediggers, for example — received bonuses on top of their basic salary. Female-dominated jobs on the same grade would typically only receive their basic salary.

Chris Benson, partner in the employment team at Leigh Day & Co, said: “This is a great day for equality and for all those women massively underpaid over many years within public and private organisations.”