Red Pepper has a comprehensive feature on equal pay marking the 40th anniversary Equal Pay Act in May.
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/Mind-the-gap,2010?
The article also looks at the Equality Bill the implementation of which is now in danger already as the Con Dem Coalition has ripped up the Parliamentary timetable proposed by the outgoing Government.
Red Pepper posed the question to UNISON of whether will the Equality Act narrow the gap? Bronwyn McKenna responded ‘There are measures that will highlight the issues of equal pay but they won’t deal with the systemic problems of equal pay,’ For example, the new legislation will promote transparency and will require public sector bodies with 150 or more staff to publish their gender pay gap and require the same of private and voluntary sector employers with at least 250 employees. ‘So that would leave about 40 per cent of the workforce not covered,’ she notes.
It will also ban pay-secrecy clauses which effectively conceal inequality. ‘Our main problem [with the Act] is with the underlying legal framework, which means that cases just run for an inordinately long amount of time,’ says McKenna. ‘There is huge scope for tactical or time-delaying approaches, which the other side is going to throw at you and which you know aren’t going to succeed.’
