Today, The Equality Trust launches www.equalpayatwork.org.uk, the result of over a year of collaborative work with 12 unions [1] and academics [2]. This website brings together the expertise of those with lived and learned experiences of tackling equal pay issues in their workplaces to be used by workers across the UK.
This comes ahead of Equal Pay Day, this year calculated by The Fawcett Society to fall on the 20th of November. This is the day in which women, on average, start working for free – based on the latest gender pay gap figures from the Office for National Statistics. These show that the gender pay gap based on the average full-time salary is 11.3%. The gap is wider for those who work part time, and may be even worse for women of colour, disabled women and those who experience other intersectional inequalities. Pay discrimination is a driver of the gender pay gap.
This website was developed as part of our Equal Pay 50 campaign, recognising that more than 50 years after the Equal Pay Act 1970 there are still nearly 30,000 equal pay claims a year [3]. This demonstrates that there is a real need for workers to have the tools that they need to uncover and challenge possible pay discrimination.
Jo Wittams, co-Executive Director of The Equality Trust said “Pay discrimination is a key driver of the gender pay gap, and income inequality as a whole. Our ambition is that this toolkit will become a key method of dismantling structural pay inequalities within workplaces.
For too long the onus has been on the individual to prove pay discrimination and this website enables collaborative working to hold employers to account and resolve issues over unequal pay. ”
Dr Ian Manborde, Equalities Education Officer at Equity said, “As the UK’s leading trade union for self-employed workers we understand the central role of equal pay in the fight for fair pay. We are proud to have contributed to the development of the Achieving Equal Pay at Work website as a key instrument in the struggle to gain economic justice for workers. We wholeheartedly encourage the trade union movement to utilise this unique, valuable resource as part of their strategic efforts to eradicate inequalities in pay.”
The toolkit was funded by Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.
Please contact Jo Wittams on jo.wittams@equalitytrust.org.uk for further comment or interviews.
[1] University and College Union, Pharmacists Defence Association, Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, Unison, Unite, GMB, NEU, NAHT, NASUWT, Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, FDA and Equity
[2] The University of Manchester Allied Business School and Queen Mary University of London
[3] DLA Piper, 2020