Birmingham City Council has reached a crucial agreement with unions over how jobs are graded, moving a step closer to settling its equal pay claims.
In September, the council declared itself ‘effectively bankrupt’ by issuing a section 114 notice, meaning its budget would not cover planned spending for the coming year.
The deficit is largely down to a bill of £760 million to settle equal pay claims, many of which date back more than a decade.
Council leader John Cotton said: “I am delighted that GMB, Unison and Unite have all signed the addendum which sets out how we will carry out the Job Evaluation Scheme at Birmingham City Council.
Birmingham City Council
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“This is a huge step forward as we seek to put our council back on a sound financial footing.”
Previously, the council had given a date of November 2024 for a hearing to determine whether its job evaluation scheme is valid. But unions including GMB urged the council to “sit down… and sort this out now” so affected workers could access settlements.
Cotton added that it had been clear to him that the only way to end the pay dispute would be to “deliver a fair and robust job evaluation scheme”, but that this needed to have firm agreement from unions.
The GMB union, the council’s largest union, welcomed the agreement. It said it had met its “three red lines” for acceptance, which were “worker voice, transparency, and equality-proofed”.
Michelle McCrossen, GMB organiser, said: “Today’s decision is an important first step to ending the sex discrimination faced by working women at Birmingham City Council.
“The agreement is clear that the council should not do anything that would undermine the mission of delivering an equality-proofed pay and grading structure, and we are committed to ending all ongoing discriminatory practices.”
She added that the campaign for equal pay would continue. “Hundreds of millions of pounds have been stolen from Birmingham’s women workers over years,” she said.
“With progress now made on ending the discrimination, it’s time to put that money where it should always have been – in the pockets of our hard working members.”
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A number of local authorities have declared significant budget deficits due to historic equal pay claims, including Sheffield and Glasgow, but the level of claims at Birmingham is estimated to be the most significant.
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