PAY DISCRIMINATION
Employers failing to monitor pay system for sex bias
The vast majority of UK organisations fail to monitor their pay systems for sex bias, according to figures from Industrial Relations Services, the London-based employment analysts.
A system of regular monitoring is one of the most effective methods of eliminating sex discrimination in wage systems and has long been recommended by the equality agencies, such as the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC).
But the IRS journal Equal Opportunities Review found that less than a third of the 140 organisations it surveyed collect pay data in relation to gender.
This is despite the fact that the EOC’s Code of Practice on equal pay advocates that organisations "set up a system of regular monitoring to allow checks to be made in pay practices." The code, which came into effect in March 1997, clearly has had little noticeable impact so far.
IRS also discovered that only a quarter of employers monitor pay according to race, while even fewer (21%) monitor pay in relation to disability.
A second piece of IRS research, published in the November/December edition of Equal Opportunities Review, suggests that employers might be well advised to start monitoring soon. Though relatively few equal value applications have been determined by employment tribunals, the law has been used, primarily by union-backed groups of female workers, to secure equal pay through negotiation.
According to the Equal Opportunities Review study, nearly 1,000 women have shared a total of £3.4 million in the past two years. The largest settlement involved Bedfordshire County Council, where nearly 400 school dinner staff, mainly female part-time workers, agreed to end their equal value and sex discrimination claims for a total of £1.5 million after taking the authority to an employment tribunal. Most of the women, who were backed by the GMB and Unison trade unions, received between £2,000 and £4,000 each.
Title: "Equal opportunities policies: an EOR survey of employers", Equal Opportunities Review, September/October 1999.
Availability: Industrial Relations Services, tel 020 7354 5858.
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