Birmingham City Council
The following story article appears in today's Sunday Times - www.timesonline.co.uk - needless to say the fight for equal pay in Birmingham is being led by Action 4 Equality and Stefan Cross Solicitors.
The trade unions negotiated the bonus schemes - enjoyed exclusively by the men.
And - as in other parts of the country, including Scotland - the unions deliberately kept women workers in the dark - about the huge differences in pay between traditional male and female jobs.
COUNCIL ELECTRICIAN IS PAID £124,000
"A (Birmingham) council electrician has earned pay and bonuses of £124,000 in a year — far outstripping the remuneration of a minister of state or the head of a large comprehensive.
He claimed more than £90,000 in overtime, backdated pay and “stand-by” allowances. By contrast, a minister of state such as Tessa Jowell, the Olympics minister, earns £106,136.
Details of the electrician’s pay emerged in documents released by the UK’s biggest council, which show that 58 other workers, including binmen, gardeners and gravediggers, were paid bonuses of up to £20,000 each. Women cleaners, care workers and lollipop ladies now claim they should have been included in Birmingham city council’s generous bonus scheme and are seeking up to £100,000 compensation each.
The documents, obtained for use at an industrial tribunal in Birmingham, detail pay in 2006-7. They also reveal that a dustcart driver was paid £50,917, including £24,000 in bonuses and performance related payments. Binmen were paid up to £46,000.
Manual workers earned more than private sector managers. A traffic lights repairman was paid £81,940 and a road painter was paid £57,591.
The documents provide an insight into how council workers on apparently low salaries were able to quadruple their pay with unpublicised bonuses, attendance allowances and overtime payments. Workers could even claim a special bonus to help boost their pay packets when they were away on holiday, or claim “dirt money” when they did messy work.
“These are mind-boggling sums,” said Stefan Cross, a lawyer who is fighting a case against the council over its pay policies. “Refuse workers in Birmingham are getting paid more than many solicitors and social workers.”
Birmingham city council first admitted paying hefty bonuses to some staff after a leak of highway department wage slips three years ago.
The documents obtained for the tribunal show how the bonus scheme granted workers such as gravediggers and recycling workers more than 100 types of extra payments. The female employees say they were paid less than male counterparts on the same job grades. A female grade two manual worker earned about £11,700 a year as a kitchen assistant or lollipop lady, while a binman on the same grade had a similar basic salary but with more than £30,000 in additional payments.
A 40-year-old care worker said: “We now know they got paid extra for turning up to work and extra for tidying up, while we were being paid a pittance. It’s just terrible.”
Birmingham city council, which employs 60,000 people, introduced a scheme in 2007 to remove differentials but was still paying big bonuses to male-dominated departments in 2008. Some 3,000 women are now demanding compensation. About a third of councils in England and Wales face similar claims.
Council bosses in Birmingham say the bonus scheme was phased out last year and that legal actions are against the interests of taxpayer. Alan Rudge, the council’s cabinet member for equalities and human resources, said the huge payouts for some workers were “historic”. "
The reason things are now beginning to change - is that Action 4 Equality let the cat out of the bag - no thanks, of course, to council management or the trade unions
The trade unions negotiated the bonus schemes - enjoyed exclusively by the men.
And - as in other parts of the country, including Scotland - the unions deliberately kept women workers in the dark - about the huge differences in pay between traditional male and female jobs.
COUNCIL ELECTRICIAN IS PAID £124,000
"A (Birmingham) council electrician has earned pay and bonuses of £124,000 in a year — far outstripping the remuneration of a minister of state or the head of a large comprehensive.
He claimed more than £90,000 in overtime, backdated pay and “stand-by” allowances. By contrast, a minister of state such as Tessa Jowell, the Olympics minister, earns £106,136.
Details of the electrician’s pay emerged in documents released by the UK’s biggest council, which show that 58 other workers, including binmen, gardeners and gravediggers, were paid bonuses of up to £20,000 each. Women cleaners, care workers and lollipop ladies now claim they should have been included in Birmingham city council’s generous bonus scheme and are seeking up to £100,000 compensation each.
The documents, obtained for use at an industrial tribunal in Birmingham, detail pay in 2006-7. They also reveal that a dustcart driver was paid £50,917, including £24,000 in bonuses and performance related payments. Binmen were paid up to £46,000.
Manual workers earned more than private sector managers. A traffic lights repairman was paid £81,940 and a road painter was paid £57,591.
The documents provide an insight into how council workers on apparently low salaries were able to quadruple their pay with unpublicised bonuses, attendance allowances and overtime payments. Workers could even claim a special bonus to help boost their pay packets when they were away on holiday, or claim “dirt money” when they did messy work.
“These are mind-boggling sums,” said Stefan Cross, a lawyer who is fighting a case against the council over its pay policies. “Refuse workers in Birmingham are getting paid more than many solicitors and social workers.”
Birmingham city council first admitted paying hefty bonuses to some staff after a leak of highway department wage slips three years ago.
The documents obtained for the tribunal show how the bonus scheme granted workers such as gravediggers and recycling workers more than 100 types of extra payments. The female employees say they were paid less than male counterparts on the same job grades. A female grade two manual worker earned about £11,700 a year as a kitchen assistant or lollipop lady, while a binman on the same grade had a similar basic salary but with more than £30,000 in additional payments.
A 40-year-old care worker said: “We now know they got paid extra for turning up to work and extra for tidying up, while we were being paid a pittance. It’s just terrible.”
Birmingham city council, which employs 60,000 people, introduced a scheme in 2007 to remove differentials but was still paying big bonuses to male-dominated departments in 2008. Some 3,000 women are now demanding compensation. About a third of councils in England and Wales face similar claims.
Council bosses in Birmingham say the bonus scheme was phased out last year and that legal actions are against the interests of taxpayer. Alan Rudge, the council’s cabinet member for equalities and human resources, said the huge payouts for some workers were “historic”. "
The reason things are now beginning to change - is that Action 4 Equality let the cat out of the bag - no thanks, of course, to council management or the trade unions
