Today is Equal Pay Day – a national day of action to tackle the gender pay gap. In the wake of the Comprehensive Spending Review, which many have predicted will hit women twice as hard as men, the Fawcett Society is calling on female mangers, businesses and the Government to take a stand against gender discrimination in the workplace.
Alongside the Fawcett Society, CMI is urging the Government to take greater steps to enforce pay equality by monitoring organisations more closely and naming and shaming those who fail to pay male and female staff fairly. CMI is also encouraging women to be more ambitious and stand up to inequality in their workplaces and calling on businesses to be more transparent around remuneration levels.
CMI’s National Management Salary Survey revealed in August that equal pay for women could still be more than five decades away. Although female salaries increased by 2.8 per cent over the 12 last months, compared to 2.3 per cent for men, the fact than an average male manager earns £10,031 more than a female in a similar role means that, at the current rate of increase, men and women would not be paid the same until 2067. Scrutiny of the Chancellor’s subsequent spending review revealed that £5.7bn of the £8.5bn being raised through cutting direct contributions to individuals will come from women.
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CMI chief executive, Ruth Spellman, said: “The UK is fast returning to the regressive culture of more than 50 years ago, when women were severely disadvantaged in both their home and working lives. Cuts to childcare and housing benefit announced in the recent spending review put women at a huge disadvantage when they are already paid significantly less than men. There’s a role for the Government, women and business in preventing the creation of a society where it is simply too expensive for women to work, reducing the amount of talented workers available and damaging UK plc.
“Research from the Fawcett Society shows that current levels of pay discrimination are equivalent to men being paid for the whole working year while women are only paid until today (2 November). This is an outrage and utter exploitation – the work that women do is just as valuable as men and they deserve to be paid accordingly. It’s time to tackle workplace inequality once and for all.”
For more information on how the CMI can help female managers to tackle pay inequality, please visit www.managers.org.uk/glassceiling
