UNITED KINGDOM
A promise made by a UK Minister more than 60 years ago that there would be pay equality in the “non-industrial” Public Service by 1961 has still not been fulfilled, a top trade union official says.
General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, Mark Serwotka said the pledge was made by then Chancellor of the Exchequer R. A. (Rab) Butler (pictured) in 1955 “and we are still waiting”.
Mr Serwotka was speaking after an analysis prepared for the union divided Departments and Public Service grades into majority male (with less than 40 per cent female employees) and majority female (with more than 60 per cent female staff).
It found an Executive Officer in a majority-male Department was paid 13 per cent more than the equivalent in a majority-female Department.
Departments that have a majority of women include Work and Pensions, HM Courts and the Tribunal Service.
Departments with a majority of men include the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency and Defence Equipment and Support.
The PCS report, produced by Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management at the University of Surrey, Dr Mark Williams, also examined a Department that was dominated by neither gender.
PS employees in the male-dominated Departments earned on average 5.7 per cent more than those in the more gender-balanced Departments at administrative grades, while the gap was 13 per cent more for executive posts.
“The difference in median pay between female-dominated and male-dominated grades is unlikely due to just the fact that there might be more variation in pay across Departments in lower-paying grades,” Dr Williams said.
Mr Serwotka said the analysis was “a damning indictment of the delegated pay system, which has enabled Departments with a majority of female employees, or majority female grades, to pay less than Departments and grades which have men in the majority”.
“For the last 20 years, pay determination has been delegated to Government Departments,” Mr Serwotka said.
“This has created the environment ripe for pay inequality, hundreds of different pay systems, which pay more or less to employees doing the same or comparable jobs.”
He called for a return to national pay bargaining in the Public Service, as well as reiterating the union’s calls for a “decent pay rise across the board to give justice to our members”.
London, 9 March 2019
