Glasgow City Council will look into making payments to potentially thousands of women workers after a court ruling suggested that the council might have been paying them less than their male colleagues.
In May, thousands of women workers won the right to pursue equal pay claims against the council after the Court of Session dismissed the authority’s claim that its payment protections did not discriminate on gender.
Now the same court has decided that the council failed to provide any evidence that shows that workers with equal levels of demand were given equal ratings.
The court ruled that the onus of proving the validity of the council's job evaluation scheme in terms of the Equal Pay Act lies with the council.
This judgement overrules an earlier decision by the Employment Tribunal in 2013, upheld by the Employment Appeals Tribunal in 2016, which decided that the council’s scheme was valid.
Some 1,400 council workers are represented by the trade union Unison, which said that 6,000 claimants in total could benefit from the ruling, many of whom have equal pay claims dating back to 2006.
Explaining the significance of the judgement, Unison Scotland's head of policy, Dave Watson said that council now has no choice but to make these payments to its workers.
Council leader, Susan Aitken,told The MJ, that was a 'complex ruling about a complex matter'.
