Birmingham City Council Building, UK | Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Birmingham, the second largest city in the United Kingdom, filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday (5) and halted all nonessential spending in the city after claims for equal pay for male and female employees totaling up to £760 million US dollars). Millions).
The Laborrun city council, which provides services to more than a million people, issued a statement on Tuesday confirming it was suspending all city spending except for those on essential services required by law.
The municipal deficit arose due to the council’s difficulties in meeting female workers’ demands for equal pay. Expenditure to ensure this parity varies between 650 million pounds (about 816 million US dollars) and 760 million pounds (about 954 million US dollars), according to a report published by the authorities along with the statement.
These demands have existed since 2012, when a group of 170 female workers fought in court for the right to enforce their equal pay requests against the city council. At the time, they claimed that the council was not paying women the same salaries and benefits that men received for providing the same services.
According to CNN, Labor’s Sharon Thompson, deputy leader of the council, told councilors on Tuesday that the city was facing “longstanding issues, including concerns about the historic responsibility for equal pay within the council”.
Because of these difficulties and the payments they will have to make, the city council is now expecting a deficit of 87 million pounds (about $109 million) for the 2023/24 financial year.
Thompson blamed the Conservative Party, which governs the United Kingdom, in part for the city’s difficulties in securing funding to support equal pay. She said Birmingham “has had £1bn of funding withdrawn by successive Conservative governments”.
In response, a spokesman for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of the Conservative Party told reporters on Tuesday: “It is clearly the responsibility of elected local councils to manage their own budgets.”
The spokesman added that the government was in “regular contact with them”. [conselheiros de Birmingham] In this regard, he expressed concerns about his governance arrangements and sought assurances from the council leader about the best use of taxpayers’ money.”
Birmingham council leader John Cotton of the Labor Party told the BBC he had announced the introduction of a new employment model on the council to address the issue of equal pay entitlements.
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