A man who has been off work sick for 15 years has insisted suing his employer for not giving him a payrise was not out of greed.
Ian Clifford, 50, made headlines after it was revealed he took his employer - IBM - to court as he believed he should have received pay increases in the decade and a half he has been on sick leave so far, alleging that it constituted disability discrimination.
Clifford had been employed as a senior IT technician when he was signed off work in 2008 for mental health reasons, before being diagnosed with stage-four leukemia in 2012.
Under the IBM health plan, he receives over £54,000 ($67,100) a year, which is guaranteed to continue until he is 65.
Clifford had taken the tech giant to court last year on the basis that his salary had not been reviewed since 2013, but the judge ended up ruling against him.
He has now spoken out about why he decided to take legal action, telling The Telegraph that it was more for his family's benefit than his own, as he does not believe he will live for 15 more years, which is the maximum time the plan will pay him for.
Clifford explained: "I am on chemotherapy and have been for many years and have been extremely unwell. Your salary affects your death in service [insurance], pension, and everything else, it was more for my family.
"People may think, yes it's generous, but firstly those amounts are gross not taxed. ... I do pay National Insurance on those amounts.
"I have a son [who is] off to university. Your mortgage doesn't go down because you are sick."
He added that he spent all of his savings as well as borrowed money on a credit card to bring the court case - which cost him around £30,000 ($37,300) - and had only resorted to legal action as a last resort because he had always seen himself as a "company man".
"People will still think it's greedy but at the end of the day, yes it's unfortunate, but that was a benefit I got with the job," he said.
Clifford claimed he had asked for a modest 2.5% pay rise for the period between 2013 and 2022 and asked IBM to clarify whether they had carried out a formal salary review, as well as making two separate offers to IBM through his lawyers to settle the case before the hearing.
He had argued that with inflation at over 10%, the "value of the payments would soon wither," per Metro. "The point of the plan was to give security to employees not able to work – that was not achieved if payments were forever frozen," he said.
Judge Paul Housego, presiding over the case dismissed it, saying: "That active employees may get pay rises, but inactive employees do not, is a difference, but is not, in my judgment, a detriment caused by something arising from disability.
"The complaint is in fact that the benefit of being an inactive employee on the Plan is not generous enough, because the payments have been at a fixed level since April 6, 2013, now 10 years, and may remain so.
"The claim is that the absence of increase in salary is disability discrimination because it is less favorable treatment than afforded those not disabled. This contention is not sustainable because only the disabled can benefit from the plan.
"It is not disability discrimination that the Plan is not even more generous. Even if the value of the [$67,000] a year halved over 30 years, it is still a very substantial benefit," the judgment reads.
IBM has yet to comment publicly on the case and Clifford has lodged an appeal against the ruling.
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