GMB sex discrimination decision overturned

An employment tribunal ruling that the GMB union was guilty of sex discrimination has been overthrown by the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT).

More than 100 female council workers took their own union to court claiming that they had discriminated against them by working harder to protect men's pay and failing to win them back pay.

The workers from Middlesbrough Council accused the GMB of protecting a gender pay gap when conducting Single Status negotiations for equal pay and a tribunal in Newcastle upheld their complaint of indirect sex discrimination in June 2006.

However, the EAT overturned the earlier decision and union leaders have welcomed the ruling as a "victory for common sense and equal pay".

The latest EAT ruling is expected to have wide-reaching effects on other cases against public sector unions accused of failing to work hard enough to secure equal pay for their members.

Female local authority employees have submitted claims worth millions of pounds across the UK, having faced years of pay disparity in the public sector.

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Date:02/08/2007 11:04:05