UNION leaders have begun ground-breaking legal action in a bid to secure a £10million pay rise for 4,000 county council workers.
UNISON, which represents white collar public sector workers, has lodged its claim on behalf of mainly female teaching support staff using new Government legislation.
It believes it can prove they do as important a job as male technical staff working in the Environment Directorate who get paid up to £2,500 more a year.
The union has lodged its claim with an employment tribunal in Manchester but has agreed to leave it on ice until negotiations with the county council over pay rises were complete.
The legal action is the largest equal value pay claim to be made in Europe, and one of the first in Britain.
A total of 990 teaching assistants are named, but the salaries of 4,000 other workers, including nursery nurses, special support assistants and classroom assistants, will be affected.
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