equal pay

fender62

i am a cook at a local school and work for the county council, and have been hearing a lot of news about equal pay and that catering staff could be owed up to 6 years back pay , has anyone heard about this, or had any advise about how you claim this money back

Poppy9

You need to speak to your union and they should have all the information about any back pay claims they are making on behalf of groups of staff.

All councils (not sure if it's just Wales) have to have a Job Evaluation scheme in place from April 2007. Most councils may have a proposed scheme but implementation is another thing as they cannot afford it.

Job evaluation means calculating a score for every type of job in the council.

Equal pay is part of this JE exercise as currently manual male dominated roles with councils like refuse collection, building work etc attracts bonus payments, where as female dominated areas like catering and cleaning don't. I think only if you have launched and equal pay claim dating back 6 years will you get 6 years back pay and even then the union might have agreed a 1, 2 or 3 year limit.

fender62

hi thanks for your reply, i am not in a union i never bothered to join. yes my local council are in the process of a job eveluation and we are awaiting our new anual pay rise, we have been informed that this will be conplete by july and back dates to the april , i am unsure as to how to proceed with this i do not want to join a union if i dont need to.

LittleVoice

I would be fairly confident that, even in these hard times, Councils would treat you the same as union members in the same role if a pay increase and back pay were agreed.

Sagaris

Yes - they can't discriminate between union and non union members. I've always been in the union, they have been very useful (getting my will done and other legal help) and told the management to !!!!off when they were harrassing me unfairly for daring to take time off when I was seriously ill - without ther help I would have been dragged before a disciplinary tribunal!

ohreally

fender62 wrote: »

i am not in a union i never bothered to join. ..... i am unsure as to how to proceed with this i do not want to join a union if i dont need to.

Are you quite prepared to take the fruits of the hard work brought by the trades union involved in terms of equal pay claims,job evaluation,annual pay rise and other benefits of collective bargaining without contributing.....?

Poppy9

fender62 wrote: »

hi thanks for your reply, i am not in a union i never bothered to join. yes my local council are in the process of a job eveluation and we are awaiting our new anual pay rise, we have been informed that this will be conplete by july and back dates to the april , i am unsure as to how to proceed with this i do not want to join a union if i dont need to.

So if you are not in a union then no one has launched an equal pay claim on your behalf. Equal pay claim as made for individuals with names. It can only be backdated to the date of the claim. You can make a claim yourself now, your employer should tell you how to do it. Your claim though if sucessful will only be backdated to the date you submitted your claim.

lapat

just a quicky here my old lady works for manchester council similar job
and yes she was awarded the six year back pay and they were basically forced to take it she has worked for them for 25 years and i worked it out if she held out she would get double but she didnt as she is due for retiring and she wanted it sorted asap all manchester councils was sorted before xmas last year(which was another scam as before xmas everyone would like some extra cash0

Poppy9

Toots wrote: »

Why if you can only claim from the date you submit the claim has it been in the National press saying that loads of people will be getting 6 yeras backpay?

If you are sure it is only from the date of the claim, does this mean a claim was put in 6 years ago that is just in the process of being settled?

Toots

Yes the claim would have been launched at least 6 years ago, probably longer. It's a very slow process equal pay claims. It usually involves court cases and the council would have used Job Evaluation as a reason to delay matters further.

There is usually some proviso for employees who have now left the authority to get their back dated pay from the date of their claim to the date they ceased employment.

I've known a few areas of regradings that we have paid thousands of pounds in arrears as the dispute has been going on for years. Sometimes the union will agree to a shorter period of back pay and not insist on going back to date of claim. Depends on the workers and the money involved. One thing to note if you are in the pension fund the lump sum will not only be taxable they will also take the pension contributions out of it.