£100 offer for Wolverhampton teaching assistants after rejecting £3,000
Hundreds of teaching assistants claim they have been offered just £100 by Wolverhampton City Council as part of an equal pay settlement, it has emerged.
The offer comes just six months after many of them turned down payouts of around £3,000 on the advice of trade union bosses.
The money relates to a six-year-old nationwide dispute which began when female workers claimed compensation saying they were paid less than male colleagues doing exactly the same job.
Around 1,500 staff employed by Wolverhampton City Council, all of whom work in schools across the city, received individual offers earlier this year from the authority.
But more than half of them turned down the payouts on the advice of Unison and GMB, who said they were entitled to more money.
On average teaching assistants are paid a basic wage of £1,200 per month and do not receive holiday pay or overtime. They have seen their wages cut by 18 per cent in real terms since Michael Gove axed collective pay bargaining in 2010.
Now around 80 of them have formed an action group with the aim of setting up a meeting with the authority, union leaders and solicitors in a bid to thrash out a deal.
A spokeswoman for the group, who asked not to be named, said: "We were told not to accept £3,000 because it was too low. Now the council has come back with what we consider to be a derisory offer.
"Other councils have paid out large settlements to teaching assistants, Wolverhampton seems to be the only one that hasn't. We feel Unison and GMB have given us bad advice and we have been let down by the council. As a group we feel undervalued."
She added that Unison had told members they are no longer dealing with issues relating to the dispute, and are instead referring people to its solicitors.
Ravi Subramanian, West Midlands regional secretary of Unison, said the union would not comment on ongoing legal proceedings.
Another of the group's members said she was initially offered £10,000 by the council, which then sent her an e-mail explaining the offer was 'an administrative error'.
All staff who have accepted payouts have been issued with gagging orders preventing them from talking about their settlements to anyone other than their immediate family.
Like many authorities across the country, Wolverhamptopn has spent years trying to iron out equal pay disputes.
In 2008, the authority shelled out £33m to fight and settle hundreds of claims, while it has set aside a further £30m to try and resolve current claims.
The teaching assistants have been given 14 days to decide whether or not to accept the £100 offer.
Councillor Paul Sweet, Cabinet Member for Governance and Performance, said: "The latest offers have been calculated in accordance with the terms of the settlement agreed with the claimants' legal representatives. The nature of these offers remain confidential between the council, the claimants and their representatives and should not be disclosed to any third parties."
