Equal pay case goes to Europe

The Court of Appeal has referred an equal pay case to the European Court

of Justice, which will be asked to rule on whether women employed by

contracted-out firms can compare their pay to that of male workers still

employed by the local authority. The claim is on behalf of more than 400

women in North Yorkshire who work for catering and cleaning

subcontractors in schools, including Regent Office Care, Mitie Secure

Services and the Commercial Catering Group.

A ruling is unlikely to be given this year, but the case is of enormous

importance to workers like the school staff whose work was contracted

out and who now find themselves employed under worse pay and conditions

than when they worked directly for the local authority. If the court

rules that they can compare their pay with in-house staff it will deal a

major blow to contracting out.