Vikki Massarano comments in Pensions Expert as Government defeated on discriminatory changes for firefighters and judges
The Employment Appeal Tribunal is returning the firefighters’ discrimination case to the Employment Tribunal.
The decision is the latest twist in a saga dating back to 2016, when the Fire Brigades Union raised a legal challenge on behalf of 6,000 members about age discrimination, equal pay, race discrimination and sex discrimination.
As part of government changes to all public sector pension schemes, the new 2015 Firefighters’ Pension Scheme was introduced, replacing the final salary arrangement with a career average revalued earnings scheme.
Vikki Massarano noted that both cases concluded that there was legitimate aim, the key difference is whether it was justified to bring in the transitional protections.
She commented: “We’ve not seen the end of these – I think – by a long chalk‚ what will be really interesting in the firefighters’ case is to see what the employment tribunal concludes when they reconsider using the wider test that the [appeal tribunal] say they’ve got to use.”
Read Vikki Massarano’s comments in Pensions Expert
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