Birmingham City Council has revealed it will have to pay at least £757m to settle equal pay claims brought by workers who missed out on bonuses.
174 people who worked in traditionally-female roles won a ruling at the Supreme Court last month, and the quoted figure of £757m includes claims by that group of people as well as hundreds of other City Council workers.
The remaining money the council still has to pay out is budgeted into the £600m it says it has to save by 2017.
Council leader Sir Albert Bore said the equal pay ruling had left the council in a “horrendous position financially”, and he said that he expected the figures of the claims to rise.
Sir Albert refused to give a figure of how many people could potentially submit claims; however the council leader said the authority could only afford to borrow £429m of the £757m figure without having to get special dispensation from the government to take out more loans.
It has been suggested that this Court ruling could affect hundreds of other workers, and Sir Albert said the city council was not the only authority in that situation, and that this ruling had “implications for many more in the public and private sector”.
Joan Clulow, one of the women who was part of the group and worked as a home carer for the city council for 27 years, said:
“The council could have saved an awful lot of money if they had listened to us in the first place.
“I worked hard – I worked on Christmas Day, whenever they wanted me to. I don’t feel guilty at all. I did a good job and I enjoyed my job – I deserved that pay.”