Rough deal persists on women's pay

Millions of people across Britain were busy building bonfires and watching fireworks to mark Guy Fawkes night this week.

It's a wonderful winter occasion that brings families and communities together and adds a bit of sparkle to long, dark days.

Only dogs and scrooges could take umbrage at the festivities.

But there was a more significant date this week, one that was celebrated by no-one but affects half of the population.

Wednesday was labelled Equal Pay Day by the Fawcett Society, which says women will effectively work for nothing from this week until January 1 as a result of the gender pay gap of 14.9 per cent.

In a report back in 2010 the society called on government to ensure gender pay audits for companies with over 250 employees, extend flexible working to all and encourage shared parenting.

Those solutions can't be implemented soon enough.

Forty years since the introduction of the Equal Pay Act research shows that for every £100 men take home, women only get £85 - a clear indicator of ingrained inequalities.

Regular Star readers will know that women are bearing the brunt of the country's Conservative-driven cutbacks because a huge number work in the public sector, which is of course the victim of an all-out coalition assault.

Fawcett Society chief executive Ceri Goddard says it's only going to get worse.

"The workforce is experiencing dramatic change, with around three-quarters of a million public-sector jobs predicted to go by 2017," she says.

"Plans to pull down public-sector pay to reflect local private-sector rates will also hit women harder than men, while the recently floated policy of enabling workers to 'sell off' progressive employment rights in exchange for company shares also threatens to further drive down women's wages.

"At the same time, women's unemployment stands at a record 24-year high and growing numbers of women have been forced into low paid, part-time and insecure employment - 'underemployment.'

"The government is pinning its hopes on the hundreds of thousands of women who will make up the majority of those losing their jobs being able to find work in the private sector."

While women have made a certain amount of hard-fought progress in the private sector over the past few decades big business remains a boys' club.

Analysis of pay data by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) shows that while 57 per cent of company executives are female their route to lead those businesses remains blocked by lingering prejudice.

Just one in four chief executives and 40 per cent of departmental heads are women, even though 70 per cent of junior executives are female.

On top of that female executives have received less than half of what men get in bonuses and are more likely to be made redundant.

National chairwoman of Women in Management UK - which is part of the CMI - Sandra Pollock tells the Star: "I think a lot of it is historical, a lot is psychological and there are cultural reasons. All three are tied up together.

"People like people who are like themselves, so when decision-makers are looking to employ people we tend to want to see people that are similar to ourselves.

"But research shows that having different people around that aren't exactly like ourselves is financially beneficial and it makes for better governance and higher levels of creativity and innovation.

"If we take the personal element out of it and look at the business benefit then all the research shows that those organisations that have greater gender balance are actually more productive, more successful and they achieve more."

Forty years on from the Dagenham Ford workers' famous strikes for equal pay, which led to the introduction of the Equal Pay Act, it's clear that problems persist in both the public and private sectors.

So it's no surprise that feminism is once again on the rise and a new wave of women's groups are fighting back.

And they are winning.

Last month women workers at Birmingham City Council won a Supreme Court case over equal pay.

Thousands of women will now be able to claim compensation for pay they never received simply because they are women.

Lawyers said the victory would have "huge implications" and with echoes of the Dagenham women's fight in 1970 this landmark case could prove the key to unlocking the doors that lead to equality.