Your questions answered - Week Five - The Pay Gap

13.07.10 - Helen Symons

Labour stands for equality and fairness at work and in the wider community. How do we tackle the gender pay gap, discrimination and low pay in the current economic climate?

Diane Abbott:

Labour has a fantastic record of supporting people at work and I am proud to have been able to vote for some of the most progressive and radical policies of the century – The Minimum Wage Act and legislation to end discrimination in the workplace form a very proud part of our history. But Legislation isn’t the panacea and we have so much more to do to equalise pay between men and women and make sure that elements of our workforce, such as temporary and agency workers are not put at risk of exploitation.

On the issue of the Gender Pay Gap which is something that we, as a society, should be ashamed of, something radical must be put in place. When women accountants are earning up to two thirds less than their male counterparts, for example, we have to make companies and business more transparent to expose and tackle inequalities in pay between the sexes.

I’m pleased that the UK Government finally signed up to the Temporary and Agency Workers directive, albeit after some needed lobbying from Trade Unions, but I wait to see how the current Government puts the Directive into practice. My worry is that this Government led by a coalition who have shown their willingness to cosy up to sections of the business community to the detriment of the most vulnerable, will bow to pressure from some groups and water down the Directive. We must resist this vehemently.

Ed Balls:

For me, equality sits at the heart of our socialist principles. It is 100 years since the women chainmakers’ strike for a minimum wage, 42 years since the famous Ford women’s dispute and 40 years since the landmark Equal Pay Act they inspired. Though Labour has acted to narrow the pay gap, there is still a 17% pay gap for full time workers and 40% for part timers.

It's not enough to study the pay gap; we must take decisive action to narrow it. To begin with, we must defend Labour’s Equality Act from Tory back-sliding and extend the requirement to promote equality to the private sector, starting with those on government contracts and publishing every large company’s pay gap.

We cannot succeed by individual case law alone. I want to promote union-negotiated collective settlements, pay audits, equality reps and representative legal actions.

The National Minimum Wage improved women’s pay. It should rise above £7 an hour. I support the Living Wage and was the only Cabinet minister to implement the Living Wage for all my staff and contractors.

Finally tax credits and child benefit are essential in tackling family poverty and we must defend them against Tory- Lib Dem attacks.

The Tory-Lib Dem government threatens to widen inequality by reneging on equality law, undermining enforcement, slashing tax credits and benefits and cutting public sector jobs which pay women more. This could set us back decades and Labour’s new leader must put equality at the heart of our concerns.

Andy Burnham:

First off, we don’t let the boulder roll back down the hill on the advances we have made. Whether it’s on low pay, discrimination or the gender pay gap, we will not stand by and see hard won gains under Labour wither on the vine under the Tory/ Liberal coalition.

That is our main task as an Opposition over coming months. We will not allow the Conservatives to get away with dismantling progressive measures for their ideological ends under the cloak of “we can’t afford it”. We will put pressure on those shame-faced Lib Dems MPs to ensure they support us as we protect what we have built during our 13 years in office. The coalition says that it is committed greater gender equality. An easy thing to claim. We will hold them to it.

In terms of low pay, we must fight to ensure the value of the Minimum Wage does not diminish. The Tories hate the fact that the National Minimum Wage has been such a success. They will roll-out the old Tory arguments about the country not being able to afford regular increases, but it’s good for the economy, especially during such a fragile recovery, to have the low paid with more money in their pockets.

David Miliband:

In Government, Labour made real progress on tackling discrimination at work. Our Equalities legislation made provision for extra protection for employees and we were absolutely right to introduce gender pay audits.

However there is still a long way to go and the gender pay gap is still too wide. 40 years after equal pay legislation came into force, women working full-time earn on average 17% less per hour than men. For ethnic minority women, the gap is even higher at 20%. Over the course of a working life women earn £330,000 less than men.

To tackle this we need to make sure we improve the enforcement of employment rights. Proper inspection and follow up of breaches of employment laws will help tackle discrimination at work.

We also need to look at ways of ensuring employees are properly involved and informed about important decisions in the places they work. Workers need the power to tackle discrimination and improve fairness in the workplace. That’s why we need to reform corporate governance by requiring an employee representative on the remuneration committees of firms – and promoting the rights to information and consultation.

Finally, despite the minimum wage, it is wrong that there are still over 5 million low paid workers in our country today. That’s why we should campaign to ensure that anyone working in the public sector is paid a living wage – showing a lead to the private sector.

Ed Miliband:

Fairness is part of Labour’s DNA, but at times we have lost sight of what it takes to achieve a more equal society, one where people can get on whatever background they come from, one where we are not divided as we currently are by gross differences of class, wealth and power.

Above all, if we are to really achieve a fairer society we need to do more to improve working conditions for those who work the hardest. Too many are still stuck in low wage, long hours jobs. And although we achieved a lot in Government, we didn't do enough to create the routes to better work and a better life. The party of the minimum wage somehow became the party of maximum flexibility to work. But we all know that flexibility for employers can lead to low wages and poor employment conditions. We didn't take enough steps to offer better protection.

The Labour Party I want to lead will fight to build a different kind of economy. An economy with greater fairness in work, a greater number of higher quality and better skilled jobs, and with greater time outside of work for people to lead more fulfilling lives.

That’s why I am campaigning for a living wage for everyone. No one who works should live in poverty. It’s a fundamental Labour belief that work should pay and those who work hard should be properly rewarded. That’s why it was so important for us to implement the agency workers directive, although it took far too long to do so. Now the Coalition are rowing back from this commitment, and I’ve written to David Cameron to make sure the regulations stay.

We must also fight to tackle discrimination in the workplace. There can be no justification for paying people differently according to gender and firms need to be open about what people are paid and about how they determine people’s pay scales.

Time outside of work matters as well, particularly to those working long hours in the hardest jobs. I want everyone to have the right to request flexible work and we need to focus more on the responsibilities of employers to invest in their workforce and develop their skills.