In this issue
IMPACT Audio Bulletin
Fórsa - it's time to vote
After #Ophelia
New entrant talks underway
SNAs back industrial action
Civil servants demand WRC access
Legal view sought on Ryanair
Save with the new IMPACT discount scheme
Ibec on board for gender pay gap reporting
Employer body reconsidered position following IMPACT correspondence
by Lughan Deane
 
According to Ibec’s own definition of the gender pay gap, then, the Australian model (preferred by Ibec) does not measure the gap and the UK model does.
According to Ibec’s own definition of the gender pay gap, then, the Australian model (preferred by Ibec) does not measure the gap and the UK model does.
Analysis

The Department of Justice and Equality’s public consultation process on measures to address the gender pay gap closed for submissions earlier this month. IMPACT has made two contributions. Throughout their submissions, trade unions were united in their calls for gender pay gap reporting legislation.

Prior to this consultation process employer group Ibec appeared to be against gender pay gap reporting. They had said that gender pay gap reporting “was not a useful mechanism” for closing the gender pay gap. Ibec is now calling for reporting to be introduced.

IMPACT wrote to Ibec to point out that gender pay gap reporting presents businesses with several real opportunities. In its letter, IMPACT argued that the measure “would open up a new front on which employers could compete to attract and retain the best female talent.” And that “publicly available gender pay gap information would also allow firms to make informed choices about who to engage as suppliers or contractors from a gender equality perspective.”

The correspondence concluded by expressing a hope that “Ibec might reconsider its opposition to the principle underpinning the Bill” ahead of the consultation.

Fair dues

Credit where credit is due: Ibec did reconsider its position. In its submission, they called for the introduction of gender pay gap reporting based on the Australian model. Ibec said that “once an appropriate method of reporting is developed it will offer a diagnostic approach to highlighting what the particular issues are for organisations and industry sectors alike.”

It is great to see Ibec lend its support to the principle of gender pay gap reporting. We continue to believe that we must design our regulations according to the UK model. It’s important, though, to engage substantively and we are willing to compromise in areas.

Ibec has called for reporting to be introduced for employers with 250 workers in the first year, before being phased down to smaller organisations. IMPACT will support this call. We believe that organisations with 250 or more employees should report starting in the first year, organisations with over 100 employees should report beginning in the second year and organisations with 50 or more employees should report beginning in the third year.

Ibec also opposes the imposition of a class ‘A’ fine on organisations that fail to report. There is room here too for compromise. IMPACT believes that the Bill must contain an enforcement mechanism. It does not, however, need to consist of a class ‘A’ fine. This measure is not intended to be punitive.

Ibec suggests that implementing measures based on the UK model “could have reputational issues” for a firm. It is true that this measure relies on reputational incentives to work. To this end, in our submission to the Department, we suggested using data from reporting to generate a nationally recognised badge of merit for gender equality.

This could be modelled on Ibec’s new KeepWell mark that makes awards for ‘commitment’, ‘achievement’ and ‘excellence’ in health and safety practice. This would help to mitigate some of the concerns that Ibec has around reputational damage and would serve to enhance the reputational incentive created by the Bill.

There are issues, though, with Ibec’s submission. For example, in the submission Ibec provides a definition of the pay gap. Ibec states that:
“It compares the pay received by all working women and by all working men; not only the pay of women and men in same or similar jobs”.

Later, in the same submission Ibec criticises the UK model of gender pay gap reporting because the “calculations are for all working men and all working women in an organisation including the CEO not just those men and women in the same or similar jobs”.

Ibec says, meanwhile, that “the Australian model considers the like-for-like remuneration of standardised occupational categories.”

According to Ibec’s own definition of the gender pay gap, then, the Australian model does not measure the gap and the UK model does.

Union submissions

The Gender Pay Gap Information Bill 2017 is referenced throughout the union submissions. From this, it’s clear that the Labour movement is calling specifically for the UK model of gender pay gap reporting to be introduced.
  • Read IMPACT’s main submission here. In our main submission, IMPACT said it believes that “the introduction of Gender Pay Gap Reporting would represent significant progress towards closing the Gender Pay Gap” 
  • Read SIPTU’s submission here, in it they call on Government “to legislate so that companies with a staff of 50 or more must make periodic reports of the median and mean wages of female and male employees in their staff”
  • Read the Financial Services Union submission here. In it, they say that “one of the most important steps that needs to be taken is to require firms with more than 50 employees to conduct and report on gender pay surveys at regular intervals”
  • The Irish Congress of Trade Unions’ submission also called for gender pay gap reporting. Read it here.
 
 
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