A group of female MPs have joined forces to encourage women to hold their employers to account and demand action over the gender pay gap, as the deadline for reporting nears.
Led by Labour MP for Walthamstow, Stella Creasy, MPs will on Monday launch an online campaign called #PayMeToo, which aims to give working women advice on how to tackle the gender pay where they work.
Across the UK a whiff of revolution is in the air. As companies report their gender pay gap and the disparity between male and female pay is revealed, disgruntled employees are asking what they can do to force their firms to take action.
Quick GuideWhat is the gender pay gap, and what must UK companies report?
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What is the gender pay gap?
The gender pay gap is the difference between the average hourly earnings of men and women. The figure is expressed as a proportion of men’s earnings. According to the ONS, the gap between what UK male and female workers earn – based on median hourly earnings for all workers – was 17.9% in April 2018, down from 18.4% in April 2017. Data in 2018 showed that men were paid more than women in 7,795 out of 10,016 companies and public bodies in Britain.
What is being published?
All companies and some public sector bodies in Great Britain, except Northern Ireland, with more than 250 employees had to report their gender pay gap to the Government Equalities Office for the first time by by 4 April 2018. The second year of gender pay gap reports - and the first indicator of how public bodies and companies are performing - must be filed by April 2019
What’s the difference between the mean and the median figures?
Commonly known as the average, the mean is calculated by adding up the wages of all employees and dividing that figure by the number of employees. The mean gender pay gap is the difference between mean male pay and mean female pay.
The median gap is the difference between the employee in the middle of the range of male wages and the employee in the middle of the range of female wages. Typically the median is the more representative figure, because the mean can be skewed by a handful of highly paid employees.
What will happen if companies don’t report?
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said that, while it would approach employers informally at first if they failed to publish figures by the deadline, businesses could ultimately face “unlimited fines and convictions”. However, information published following a freedom of information request by the Guardian showed that no companies have been fined to date despite hundreds failing to accurately file their gender pay gap figures on time.
All private companies with more than 250 employees must by law reveal the difference in hourly rate paid to men and women before midnight on Wednesday 4 April. As the public sector deadline approached on Friday, it was revealed that nine out of ten public sector employers pay men more than women, with women paid on average 14% less than male colleagues.
The social media campaign aiming to keep pressure up on employers will launch alongside a #PayMeToo website on Monday. It aims to ensure that women know they have the right to address pay issues at work, as well offering advice for what to do next, including working with trade unions and women’s networks.
The campaign is backed by Creasy’s fellow Labour MPs Jess Phillips and Lucy Powell; Conservative MP Nicky Morgan; Liberal Democrats Jo Swinson, Christine Jardine and Layla Moran; as well as the Scottish National Party’s Hannah Bardell and Plaid Cymru’s Liz Saville Roberts.
“If we are serious about tackling the gender pay gap then we have to do more than publish data – we have to show we’re watching what happens next,” said Creasy.
The MPs are also asking women to complete and share the #PayMeToo survey, which they say “will help inform our debates on parliament about how to address these issues”.
The survey was a simple way for women to reveal issues in their workplaces in confidence, added Creasy, who said that in her first job after university she discovered she was being paid less than a male colleague of the same age and experience.
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“Women are already telling us that they are being told not to ask difficult questions about this for fear of affecting their careers and we want to be clear that trying to silence employees isn’t the right response,” she said. “Every woman has her own story of experiencing pay discrimination in their careers including me – now they need to know they have MPs ready to listen to them and act.”
Creasy added that instead of trying to shut down criticism, senior managers should actively seek solutions to tackle the gender pay gap. “If you have a gender pay gap you should expect to be challenged to address it and held to account if you try to stop your staff speaking up, whether by trade unions, women’s networks or parliament,” she said.
Swinson urged employees to use the government’s gender pay gap website – where every company that has filed results can be searched by name. “This year has revealed a lot but in subsequent years it will become increasingly difficult to hide,” she said. “Warm words used by employers about how they are going to tackle the gender pay gap will be noted by workers and measured against the reality.”
Company information already filed on the Government Equalities Office portal – which requires companies to state their mean and median gender pay gap, bonus pay gap and percentage of men and women in each quartile of their business – has already revealed glaring pay gaps in many sectors.
In banking and finance, bonus gaps of more than 60% were not uncommon; academy school chains were shown to have some of the worst gender pay gaps in the UK; while in female-dominated workforces in retail, gender pay gaps were as high as 50%.
The #PayMeToo campaign encourages women to ask colleagues what they earn, and ask managers to share the company’s action plan for dealing with the gender pay gap. It also suggests joining a union and urging union reps to take up the issue, adding: “Take it to your Women’s Network if you have one. If you don’t, start one.”
Tulip Siddiq, MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, said she discovered she was paid £10,000 less than a male counterpart and had been given a raise after gathering the courage to ask for the same money. “Once I asked, it wasn’t difficult to get pay equality,” she said. “There are thousands of women in this situation and it’s a devastating inequality in our country. It’s gone on for too long now and this is a real opportunity to sort it out.”
Nicky Morgan, MP for Loughborough and chair of the Treasury Select Committee, pointed to recent research from PwC that suggested closing the gender pay gap could boost female earning by £90bn. “Getting the figures published is just the start – now is the time to start challenging employers to take action to eliminate the gap,” she said.
Lib Dem MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, Layla Moran, said: “Information is empowering and that is exactly the point of this website. Women should not only look up their current or potential employers but use the data to demand action.”