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OTTAWA - The country's highest court says Bell Canada can't stop a federal human rights tribunal from settling a multimillion-dollar pay equity dispute.

In a 9-0 decision Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the tribunal has the impartiality and fairness needed to decide the matter.

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Louise Grenier, who joined Bell Canada as a teenager in 1977, remarks on how rooms full of employees plugging away at manual switchboards have long since yielded to far smaller staffs typing away on computers.

Despite all the change, however, one thing has been constant: A fight by female operators such as herself to be paid as well as their male colleagues.

Yesterday, a marathon battle finally ended with a settlement that will likely pay Ms. Grenier, 48, more than $20,000 owed for back wages and "pain and suffering." After 14 years of haggling, Bell Canada Enterprises agreed to pay up to $100-million to almost 5,000 mostly female employees who worked for the company during the 1990s.

"Bell was doing everything to stretch this along . . . it was terrible, it went on and on, forever," Ms. Grenier said in an interview. Although she is not happy with the deal, which has yet to be ratified, she said that she and her aging former colleagues need the money.

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