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Comment by OJFord | Hacker News Reader

1. Female/male emoloyees paid the same for equivalent role.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-66730165

Specifically, Birmingham had hired these jobs at the same pay grade, after formally assessing them to be equivalent. It then paid people hired under the same contract differently with special payments after garbage strikes.

If they had hired under a more complex pay grade structure, they would have been fine.

This is relevant to tech companies which may use fairly simple level structure.

Most likely not fine, but a tad trickier to be found out. U say a tad, because job classifications and pay grades are straight forward to do, even in court. In the end, it wouod have been an additional step during litigation.

> garbage strikes

So, the garbage workers -- men -- used strikes to extort illegal, privileged pay raises for themselves?

You could think of it like they're all doing exactly the same job, and then a union voted to strike, as a result of which only the unionised workers got a bonus, and were kept at the same grade.

(Although I'm not really sure what my point is - that the council's lawyers should've (if they didn't) made that argument? - because unlike gender I don't think union membership is a protected characteristic per Equality Act 2010, obviously there are some different rules like you can't fire someone for being a member of a union, but paying someone less because they're not a member of a union seems probably fine? But anyway, as a public body the council has extra requirements for equality, not less, and the intention probably doesn't matter at all.)

Certainly hard to argue the higher wage was set by the market when it was set by strikes rather than the need to fill jobs.

Yielding to the strikers' demands may or may not have been wise, but I have not seen anything here saying this was, in itself, illegal: it became so when the council failed to extend those increases to other workers deemed (by its own rules, apparently) to be in equivalent positions.

> It heard workers in roles such as teaching assistants and catering staff, had missed out on bonuses given to staff in jobs traditionally done by men, like refuse collectors and street cleaners.

Did you read your link before posting your commentary about it?

What problem do you think you're exposing? I said 'equivalent', not 'same', if that's what you mean.

Teaching assistants and refuse collectors are not “equivalent” roles by any reasonable interpretation of the word.

Perhaps you would have preferred I said 'of equal value' (though probably someone else would have complained it was subjective) but that is what it means. https://www.acas.org.uk/equal-pay/equal-pay-law

I was only answering what 'equal pay means in this context', and I did so succinctly because I think they already knew just doubted themselves or would be familiar by another name with a hint, take it up with the employment tribunal if you don't like this particular equivalence.

I’d say it’s better to post what the law actually says. You’re right, people will complain because it quite clearly is subjective nonsense. But sticking with the facts makes for better discussion than trying to cover them up imo.

That is the ruling, and they were "equivalent" because they were deemed to be the same "grade"; i.e. a grade 2 teaching assistant and grade 2 refuse collector are equivalent.

https://www.anthonycollins.com/insights/news/landmark-ruling...

Birmingham City Council v Abdulla and others [2012] UKSC 47. https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/uk/cases/UKSC...

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