Collective negotiating for equal pay in the health service has been vindicated after the Newcastle employment tribunal threw out a legal challenge from no win, no fee lawyers to Agenda for Change.
Agenda for Change is the NHS pay system introduced in 2004 to address unequal pay in the health service, after years of negotiation between employers and health unions led by UNISON.But in the case of Hartley v Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust, a firm of no win, no fee lawyers sought to challenge the whole of the new pay system on a number of grounds, claiming that it breached both the Equal Pay Act and the Sex Discrimination Act.
The Newcastle tribunal has rejected that challenge, on all the grounds raised. It noted that it was open to unions to pursue individual equal pay claims through the courts or employment tribunals – but its current experience of claims shows that "it could have taken a period of several years for those claims to come to fruition. The outcome might have been that some employees would have obtained equal pay; others would not.”UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis also welcomed the tribunal’s decision, saying: “This shows it is possible to strive for the goal of dealing with equal pay using collective means.
Full document @ http://www.nhsla.com/NR/rdonlyres/75F6423E-5466-43ED-B01E-51FFA0B18F7E/0/HartleyvNorthumbriaHealthcare.doc
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