WORKERS who will lose their jobs at a North-East finance centre are being used as an example by union officials to highlight allegations of sexual discrimination on the 30th anniversary of landmark equality laws.

The GMB union says that female employees at the centre - acquired by the Morrisons supermarket chain, in the Safeway takeover - will receive only one third the redundancy pay of male colleagues when they lose their jobs in the New Year.

Union chiefs said about 130 employees at a finance centre on South Tyneside - most of whom are female - will receive statutory redundancy pay plus an enhancement of £75 for each year of service.

Male colleagues at Morrisons depots in Kent and Warrington will receive three times the statutory amount plus a £1,000 lump sum.

Company bosses last night dismissed allegations of sex discrimination towards the staff at Crossgate, South Shields, as "irresponsible and unfounded''.

The Sex Discrimination Act came into force 30 years ago today and was supposed to eliminate different treatment of male and female workers. But the GMB's Martin Gannon said last night: "On the eve of the 30th anniversary of the introduction of the Act, sex discrimination is alive and well.

"One employer practising it is trading on a high street near you."

A union spokesman confirmed staff at the finance centre were not GMB members at the time the union negotiated the warehouse workers' redundancy deal.

"But the law of the land says that you cannot discriminate against people, whether they are union members or not, or whether they are male or female,'' he said.

Morrisons posted the first loss in its 106-year history in October after it was hampered by the cost of integrating Safeway. It announced 2,500 redundancies as part of a re-organisation.

A spokesman said: "Allegations of sex discrimination are irresponsible and unfounded.

"Any decisions that the company may make in respect of the finance centre at Crossgate will affect both male and female employees alike.

"Accordingly, the implied accusation that the company's treatment of employees at Crossgate is directed at female employees is both ill-informed and misconceived.''

He added: "As a result of our takeover of Safeway in 2004, we inherited a number of distribution centres, whilst the finance centre at Crossgate was formerly operated by Hewitts, before being brought in-house.

''We will fully honour the contracts, agreements, statutes and policies that we inherited from those two companies.

"Consultation on potential redundancies at our finance centre at Crossgate is being handled by senior management in accordance with good practice and in collaboration with recognised trade union Usdaw-Sata."