Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
It’s becoming depressingly predictable: the persistence of the gender pay gay in the United Kingdom.
This time last year, I was discussing with my students the struggle that City of Glasgow Council female employees were undertaking to win their claims for equal pay. After a period of industrial action, the women finally won their struggle:
We’ve just entered 2020 and it seems as if nothing much has changed in the wider world (more on this later).
Theoretically, the gender pay gap should be a thing of the past. We have had legislation in place for nearly 45 years in this country: the Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into force in December 1975) and the current Equality Act 2010.
An info graphic which shows the number of Employment Tribunal cases in the UK involving equal pay claims (2008-2019) can be seen below:
True, the above figures show the number of equal pay claims in overall decline – effectively being halved (from a high of over 60,000 in 2008 to just over 30,000 in 2019); but my riposte to that would to say still too many.
In today’s edition of The Independent, new research, carried out by the Institute of Public Policy Research, indicates that female General Practitioners (physicians for our overseas readers) are paid up to £40,000 less than their male colleagues every year.
For each £1 that a male colleague earns, a woman earns 35 pence less. To reinforce this point, the article states that female GPs are effectively providing their services free of charge between September and December every year.
In language of the Equality Act 2010, the female GPs are carrying out ‘like work’ when comparing themselves to their male colleagues. There seems to be absolutely no lawful justification for this disparity in pay between the sexes.
A link to the article in The Independent can be found below:
https://edition.independent.co.uk/editions/uk.co.independent.issue.100120/data/9277336/index.html
The equal pay laws imply a sex or gender equality clause into every person’s contract of employment. Employers therefore have a legal duty to ensure gender equality in relation to terms and conditions of service.
It seems pretty simple, so why isn’t it happening in 2020?
An explanation for this situation in the medical profession has centred around the development of a ‘two tier’ system whereby more men are partners in GP surgeries whereas a large number of women take on the role of a salaried GP. Women tend to become salaried GPs because they feel that this allows them to work flexibly around their family commitments. So, again, what we appear to be seeing is women being penalised because they are trying to balance work and family (the so called ‘motherhood’ penalty).
Also on this day …
And purely by coincidence another equal pay story …
… Samira Ahmed, BBC journalist, wins her Employment Tribunal claim for equal pay (see below):
And if you’re still not convinced …
… read the following article in The Independent about discrimination in pay between male and female apprentices (guess what?; it’s not the men who are the victims):
https://edition.independent.co.uk/editions/uk.co.independent.issue.150120/data/9283611/index.html
Copyright – Seán J Crossan, 10 and 15 January 2020
Seán Crossan's Scots Law 