unfair pay rise

[jon dicko]

my employer pays all workers the same wage.this year we did not get an anual pay rise but then 3 months ago 10% of the work force were given a pay rise, is this legal and if it is not what should i do?

[Buenchico]

As long as an employer doesn't breach specific discrimination legislation (e.g. by paying women less than men) he's free to pay what he like to whom he likes.

There may well be good reasons for your employer's decision. If, for example, an employer realises that it's hard to recruit engineers to service the machines in a factory (because nearby firms are paying more or simply because there's a shortage of skilled staff in the area) he might well decide to increase the pay for the job by, say, 50%. There's no reason, however, why other employees such as production line workers or office staff should expect to receive any extra pay. (It would also be perfectly lawful for the employer to advertise new engineering jobs with the 50% increase but to continue to pay existing engineering staff at the old rate).

In some jobs, particularly in the financial industry, it's not unusual to have staff working alongside each other, doing identical jobs, where the highest paid staff are getting up to three times the rate of the lowest paid. It's all perfeclly legal. If an employer has 1000 employees there are 1000 individual contracts and there is no reason why the terms and conditions of any one contract should have any similarity to any other contract.

Chris

[pagey]

what if the women don't do the job as well as the men?