Pensions and Equal Pay

Female dominated council jobs experience a 'double whammy' when it comes to equal pay - not only have they been paid less for many years, but this blatant discrimination continues when people reach retirement age.

Take a Home Carer and Refuse Driver, for example. Assume both jobs are full-time and that the female carer is paid £12,000 a year - while the refuse worker gets £18,000 a year - which gives a typical pay gap of around £6,000 per annum (or £3.00 per hour) based on our experience in other parts of the UK.

So, the woman's equal pay claim is to close the gap of £3.00 per hour and to recover the £6,000 a year - although this can only go back 6 years in total - so the back pay claim is for £36,000 plus interest.

But people's retirement benefits are based on their final salary - so again the women lose out. The maximum benefits under the pension scheme are for half of your final salary and three times your annual pension as a lump sum.

So, the refuse worker (on maximum benefits) would get £9,000 a year as a pension plus £27,000 (3 x £9,000) by way of a lump sum.

The home carer, on the other hand, would get only £6,000 a year as a pension plus £18,000 (3 x £6,000) by way of a lump sum. So, if she lives for 20 years after retiring, the carer loses out again - by a whopping £69,000 (20 x £3,000 = £60,000 + £9,000 difference in the lump sums)

That's the reason why so many people are waking up to the fact that they have an equal pay claim - and understanding the difference a successful claim could make to their lives.

The employers and unions, by the way, should be ashamed of themselves - for keeping this information hidden from a largely female council workforce.