THE stories around the actions of senior staff in Birmingham City Council and the politically motivated response of the Tory government have been unrolling in the press for months.

There is undoubtedly more to come, but little attention has been paid to the women workers whose pay has been continually robbed through the council’s discriminatory pay structures for years. That ends today.

Following a vote of 96 per cent in favour of strike action, GMB members chose Tuesday May 14 as the day to stand in solidarity and bring the fight for equal pay to the council’s door.

The strike action starts with picket lines at six schools and ends with a mass protest outside the council house at midday. GMB members are going to make sure that their voices are heard.

The story of their fight began at the end of November 2021 when GMB organiser Michelle McCrossen identified serious concerns around the council’s pay arrangements and working practices.

Faced with a complete unwillingness from council bosses to address the issues, McCrossen worked with GMB members and activists to build a network of workplace leaders to take the campaign forward.

McCrossen passed away in September 2023, but her legacy lives on and the campaign has continued to grow.

There are now over 3,500 equal pay claims lodged by GMB members and 78 new workplace leaders helping to organise workers.

Despite the continued pressure from women workers, council bosses continued to ignore the issue of equal pay — until it became a political football.

In September 2023, Fiona Greenway, an interim director of finance at the council, issued a Section 114, stating that the council was unable to balance its budget.

A figure of between £650 million and £760m was produced around “the cost of providing for equal pay claims.” Despite being cited in the S114 notice, Grant Thornton, the council’s external auditors, has still not signed off on this figure.

To this day, senior council staff are still relying on the figures. This is despite Max Caller, one of the commissioners parachuted in by Michael Gove, confirming that the original estimate far exceeded any likely payout.

This didn’t stop both senior staff in the council and the Tory government from using women workers as a scapegoat.

The headlines about the council going “bankrupt” following the issuing of the second S114 notice, led to Gove handing the keys to the council over to Tory-appointed commissioners.

The council is now facing £149m in budget cuts this year, the biggest cuts any local authority has been forced to make, and a fire sale of £500m worth of assets. For a council that has already lost around £1bn from its budget since 2010, these further cuts will devastate crucial statutory services.

Irrespective of a desperate plan to rebuild Birmingham’s public services, the appalling reality of the cuts is that they are all about political point-scoring and not equal pay.

There is a massive equal pay liability, but the information gathered by GMB indicates that it is not the £760m figure that led to the S114 notice. And crucially, for a council that is apparently bankrupt over equal pay, not a single female worker had been paid a penny.

Indeed, council bosses are still spending huge amounts of money defending GMB members’ claims at employment tribunals. This is why GMB members are striking.

They are refusing to continue to be used as political footballs. They’re making sure that council bosses listen to their five demands:

• We want the council to stop defending a fundamentally flawed and discriminatory job evaluation scheme at employment tribunal;
 
• We want the council to start talks with GMB on paying women workers the money they are owed;
 
• We want an agreed job evaluation scheme that isn’t outsourced or management-led;
 
• We want an agreed job evaluation scheme that involves our members and ensures equal pay for work of equal value;
 
• We want an end to pay discrimination in Birmingham City Council once and for all.

Stuart Richards is the senior organiser for GMB Midlands.