Gender Pay Gap
Here's an interesting article from The Sunday Times about the fight for gender equality and the pay gap between male and female jobs.
Now I think I'll write to Nicola Sturgeon when she becomes Scotland's First Minister next week because the ongoing FoI battle with North Lanarkshire Council is all about forcing the council - a Labour-run council - to be open and transparent over the way in which senior officials introduced new pay arrangements back in 2006.
I think the Labour Party in North Lanarkshire must have some kind of death wish because the council's behaviour is causing an awful lot of resentment and is, generally, bringing the Labour Party into disrepute.
And I can't imagine that the Westminster MPs with seats in the North Lanarkshire area, all Labour if I remember correctly, can be happy about this state of affairs with the next general election less than six months away.
By Jason Allardyce - The Sunday Times
Sturgeon: businesses should ensure men and women are paid equally
NICOLA STURGEON, who this month becomes the first woman to lead Scotland’s government, has called on businesses to examine their payrolls and ensure that men and women are paid equally.
Writing in The Sunday Times in support of this newspaper’s #Girlsgetahead campaign, she makes clear that gender equality will be a key issue of her leadership after she takes over from Alex Salmond at this week’s SNP conference.
Last week we revealed that one in six women has discovered that men at the same level as them are being paid more. Sturgeon said: “The Sunday Times’s #girlsgetahead campaign has a role to play in the fight for gender equality.
“The campaign’s call for companies to look at their payrolls and ensure that men and women with the same levels of responsibility are paid the same wage is an important one — and of course equal pay would also boost savings and spending power in the economy.”
At her party’s conference Sturgeon will also back a resolution committing the SNP to quotas ensuring at least 40% of the boards of public bodies, such as Scottish
Enterprise and the National Galleries of Scotland, are made up of women.
She writes: “As first minister I want to act to unify Scotland and move forward as one. Smashing the gender glass ceiling to smithereens is an important part of making that happen.
“If parliament approves me as first minister in just over a week’s time, I want to send a message to all girls and young women across Scotland. My simple message is this: if you are good enough and work hard enough, you can achieve anything. There should be absolutely no limits to your ambition.”
Sturgeon said a stark reminder of how far women have to go came last week on equal pay day — the day on which the gender pay gap means that men’s average salaries overtake women, meaning women of the same level are effectively working for free until the end of the year.
“Worryingly, the gender pay gap in the UK actually grew this year for the first time in five years,” she said.
Women — who make up 49.3% of Scotland’s working-age population — are under-represented in senior roles, with only 12.5% of police chief constables being female and only nine out of Scotland’s 34 judges, while there are four female chief executives of Scotland’s 14 regional NHS boards.
Sturgeon said the nationalists had become the first administration to pay the living wage and last week announced it would rise to £7.85 per hour from next April.
She called on the Smith commission to devolve responsibility for employment policy to Holyrood to enable the Scottish government to raise the minimum wage. “With employment policy still reserved, the Scottish government can’t act to raise the minimum wage — currently at £6.50 per hour — and the majority of the 400,000 people in Scotland working for less than the living wage are women,” she said.
NICOLA STURGEON, who this month becomes the first woman to lead Scotland’s government, has called on businesses to examine their payrolls and ensure that men and women are paid equally.
Writing in The Sunday Times in support of this newspaper’s #Girlsgetahead campaign, she makes clear that gender equality will be a key issue of her leadership after she takes over from Alex Salmond at this week’s SNP conference.
Last week we revealed that one in six women has discovered that men at the same level as them are being paid more. Sturgeon said: “The Sunday Times’s #girlsgetahead campaign has a role to play in the fight for gender equality.
“The campaign’s call for companies to look at their payrolls and ensure that men and women with the same levels of responsibility are paid the same wage is an important one — and of course equal pay would also boost savings and spending power in the economy.”
At her party’s conference Sturgeon will also back a resolution committing the SNP to quotas ensuring at least 40% of the boards of public bodies, such as Scottish
Enterprise and the National Galleries of Scotland, are made up of women.
She writes: “As first minister I want to act to unify Scotland and move forward as one. Smashing the gender glass ceiling to smithereens is an important part of making that happen.
“If parliament approves me as first minister in just over a week’s time, I want to send a message to all girls and young women across Scotland. My simple message is this: if you are good enough and work hard enough, you can achieve anything. There should be absolutely no limits to your ambition.”
Sturgeon said a stark reminder of how far women have to go came last week on equal pay day — the day on which the gender pay gap means that men’s average salaries overtake women, meaning women of the same level are effectively working for free until the end of the year.
“Worryingly, the gender pay gap in the UK actually grew this year for the first time in five years,” she said.
Women — who make up 49.3% of Scotland’s working-age population — are under-represented in senior roles, with only 12.5% of police chief constables being female and only nine out of Scotland’s 34 judges, while there are four female chief executives of Scotland’s 14 regional NHS boards.
Sturgeon said the nationalists had become the first administration to pay the living wage and last week announced it would rise to £7.85 per hour from next April.
She called on the Smith commission to devolve responsibility for employment policy to Holyrood to enable the Scottish government to raise the minimum wage. “With employment policy still reserved, the Scottish government can’t act to raise the minimum wage — currently at £6.50 per hour — and the majority of the 400,000 people in Scotland working for less than the living wage are women,” she said.
