Retired Workers
Thousands of council workers in Scotland retire every year – around 5% of the workforce or so.
This means that between 1999 and 2005 - around 30,000 council employees who should have benefited from the 1999 Single Status Agreement – were been allowed to retire without being paid a single penny in compensation.
What should have happened is that all employees retiring or leaving their jobs during that period - should have been advised to protect their rights to equal pay - by registering a ‘protective’ claim before they left or within 6 months of their employment ending.
Not a difficult thing to do - by any means.
But no one took the issue of equal pay sufficiently seriously to protect the interest of these employees - whose jobs had been undervalued and underpaid for years.
The sad news is that the workers who retired and made no claim within 6 months are now out of time because of the time limits in the Employment Tribunals.
And that outcome is extremely unfair on thousands of female employees whose pension and retirement benefits are much lower than they should be.
For example, male Refuse Worker might retire on have retired on benefits relating to a £20,000 annual salary – a bigger pension and lump sum.
Yet, a female Home Carer was allowed to retire on the much smaller salary of about £13,000 a year (full-time) – the result being a much smaller lump sum and lower pension.
Now that really is a terrible way to treat all of these women workers - many of whom spent a twenty or thirty years serving their local communities.
This means that between 1999 and 2005 - around 30,000 council employees who should have benefited from the 1999 Single Status Agreement – were been allowed to retire without being paid a single penny in compensation.
What should have happened is that all employees retiring or leaving their jobs during that period - should have been advised to protect their rights to equal pay - by registering a ‘protective’ claim before they left or within 6 months of their employment ending.
Not a difficult thing to do - by any means.
But no one took the issue of equal pay sufficiently seriously to protect the interest of these employees - whose jobs had been undervalued and underpaid for years.
The sad news is that the workers who retired and made no claim within 6 months are now out of time because of the time limits in the Employment Tribunals.
And that outcome is extremely unfair on thousands of female employees whose pension and retirement benefits are much lower than they should be.
For example, male Refuse Worker might retire on have retired on benefits relating to a £20,000 annual salary – a bigger pension and lump sum.
Yet, a female Home Carer was allowed to retire on the much smaller salary of about £13,000 a year (full-time) – the result being a much smaller lump sum and lower pension.
Now that really is a terrible way to treat all of these women workers - many of whom spent a twenty or thirty years serving their local communities.
