Glasgow's Equal Pay Claims

In recent days the Claimants' Representatives in Glasgow have all been asked why a new Equal Pay claim against Glasgow City Council is restricted to just 5 years backdating.

The answer is down to a convention of Scots law which states that compensation claims can only be retrospective (go back in time) for 5 years from the day on which a person's claim is registered in a relevant court, in this case the Employment Tribunals.

As in other areas of the Scottish legal system, the courts do not accept that a lack of knowledge about the law is a defence against its existing rules.

For example, a court would not overturn a speeding ticket because a driver did not 'know' they were doing 70mph in a 30mph zone.

And without changing the law there is no prospect of overturning the present rule which states that Equal Pay claims against Glasgow City Council can only jump back 5 years in time from the date are they are registered with the Employment Tribunals.

In theory, it would be possible to campaign for a change in the law but this is complicated for the following reasons:

1) Any change in the law would almost certainly operate from a future date and therefore would not affect existing claims. So what would be the point?

2) A campaign to change the law would take a long time, in all likelihood years, to achieve and may involve the European as well as UK courts.

3) A separate campaign on this issue would have to focus on the Scottish Government, perhaps the UK Government as well, and would divert resources away from the task of achieving a settlement of existing claims with Glasgow City Council under the present rules.

In other words, there is no realistic prospect of achieving a change in the law that would benefit the majority of Glasgow claimants, or their representatives, who are all fighting these cases under the present 5 year rule.

So while it is really unfortunate that lots of Glasgow City Council employees did not register their claims at an earlier date, the number one priority is to achieve the best possible outcome for existing claimants under the present tribunal/employment law rules.

Once a case is registered, of course, a person's claim begins to add on time going forward, until the issue is resolved, which means that anyone who has still to register an equal pay claim should do so now.