Law Firms Face Equal Pay Challenge
Stefan Cross Solicitors is challenging six of Scotland’s leading law firms over their advice to thousands of Glasgow City Council employees about equal pay.
In November/December 2005, Glasgow City Council made settlement offers to over ten thousand employees at a series of ‘acceptance’ meetings.
The council refused to explain basis of these cash offers to their employees (i.e. how the payments were assessed and calculated), but in reality the council’s offers were worth less than twenty five per cent of the real value of people’s equal pay claims.
The city council selected the following six law firms to attend the acceptance meetings and advise the workforce:
1. Biggart Baillie
2. Brechin Tindal Oats
3. Burness
4. MacLay Murray Spens
5. McGrigor Donald
6. Wright Johnston McKenzie
Council employees were required to sign a legal waiver (known as a Compromise Agreement) before the council would release their settlements, but such agreements only exclude tribunal proceedings if the person signing the agreement has received independent legal advice and other conditions are complied with. The law firms charged Glasgow City Council £347,477.76p for providing this advice service.
Stefan Cross of Stefan Cross Solicitors commented: “We have just issued 1,000 letters of complaint to six law firms – and many more are likely to follow in the weeks ahead. These firms accepted instructions from the council and the employees had no choice in the matter.
We believe the firms failed to comply with their obligations to the women as individual clients and in particular failed to take time to advise the clients of the merits of the deal on offer and as a result the women accepted offers that were far below the true value of their claims. In addition to lodging complaints against the individual firms we are seeking a ruling from the tribunal that the agreements did not comply with the Sex Discrimination Act.”
Mark Irvine, spokesperson for Action 4 Equality Scotland, added: “The council dangled a juicy carrot in front of some of its lowest paid workers and timed this quite deliberately in the run up to Christmas 2005. Many of the lowest paid council workers lost thousands of pounds and believe that they were badly informed or even misled.
The feedback from people who attended the council acceptance meetings is that they were barely given any proper advice. Most spent only a few minutes with their council appointed lawyer and felt they had no real choice but to accept what was on offer. Apparently, the lawyers involved gave the workforce no real help or practical advice, yet council taxpayers had to pick up a whopping great bill of £347,000 for their services. ”
In November/December 2005, Glasgow City Council made settlement offers to over ten thousand employees at a series of ‘acceptance’ meetings.
The council refused to explain basis of these cash offers to their employees (i.e. how the payments were assessed and calculated), but in reality the council’s offers were worth less than twenty five per cent of the real value of people’s equal pay claims.
The city council selected the following six law firms to attend the acceptance meetings and advise the workforce:
1. Biggart Baillie
2. Brechin Tindal Oats
3. Burness
4. MacLay Murray Spens
5. McGrigor Donald
6. Wright Johnston McKenzie
Council employees were required to sign a legal waiver (known as a Compromise Agreement) before the council would release their settlements, but such agreements only exclude tribunal proceedings if the person signing the agreement has received independent legal advice and other conditions are complied with. The law firms charged Glasgow City Council £347,477.76p for providing this advice service.
Stefan Cross of Stefan Cross Solicitors commented: “We have just issued 1,000 letters of complaint to six law firms – and many more are likely to follow in the weeks ahead. These firms accepted instructions from the council and the employees had no choice in the matter.
We believe the firms failed to comply with their obligations to the women as individual clients and in particular failed to take time to advise the clients of the merits of the deal on offer and as a result the women accepted offers that were far below the true value of their claims. In addition to lodging complaints against the individual firms we are seeking a ruling from the tribunal that the agreements did not comply with the Sex Discrimination Act.”
Mark Irvine, spokesperson for Action 4 Equality Scotland, added: “The council dangled a juicy carrot in front of some of its lowest paid workers and timed this quite deliberately in the run up to Christmas 2005. Many of the lowest paid council workers lost thousands of pounds and believe that they were badly informed or even misled.
The feedback from people who attended the council acceptance meetings is that they were barely given any proper advice. Most spent only a few minutes with their council appointed lawyer and felt they had no real choice but to accept what was on offer. Apparently, the lawyers involved gave the workforce no real help or practical advice, yet council taxpayers had to pick up a whopping great bill of £347,000 for their services. ”
