The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) has backed IMPACT’s call for legislation to compel companies to reveal data on their gender pay gap. The ICTU biennial delegate conference – made up of representatives of virtually all Irish unions – last week unanimously passed IMPACT’s motion, calling on the Government, employers and unions to act.
Statistics compiled after last week’s event showed that IMPACT’s motion generated more social media traffic than the rest of conference business put together.
IMPACT says pay gap reporting would have a massive impact on female earnings. When similar measures were introduced in the UK earlier this year, a leading labour law expert said it could do more for gender pay parity in five years than equal pay legislation had done in 45.
Speaking at the ICTU conference in Belfast, IMPACT lead organiser Linda Kelly said compulsory reporting of organisations’ gender pay gaps would “shine a light on inequity” and enable consumers to take account of the pay gap when deciding what to buy.
“At the current rate of action, the United Nations reckons it will take 70 more years before women’s average pay matches men’s. Laws to compel pay gap reporting would send a strong signal that Ireland doesn’t just care about equal pay, but that we mean to do something decisive about it. Not in 70 years’ time, when I’ll be 101 years old, but now,” she said.
Legislation to introduce workplace gender pay gap reporting was adopted in the Seanad, with all-party support, in May. Introduced by senator Ivana Bacik, the Gender Pay Gap Information Bill 2017 is likely to face a sterner test when it returns to committee stage in the autumn. Ms Kelly urged trade unions and civil society organisations to keep up the pressure to maintain all-party support for the reform.
IMPACT says the legislation would put pressure on employers, forcing them to address the issue if they want to protect their reputations in an economy where brand value is ever more important.
“It will help decent employers to compete for the best talent in the labour market. Just for once, it could have them competing to pay people more. It will empower women to organise and bargain, armed with the facts and with public opinion on their side. And it will enable trade unionists, citizens and progressive organisations to take account of the gender pay gap when making decisions about how they spend their money,” said Linda.
The move on gender pay reporting has so far been opposed by employer group Ibec, despite winning the support of the UK Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and other British-based employer bodies.
IMPACT has written to Ibec, saying the measure “would open up a new front on which employers could compete to attract and retain the best female talent” and said “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.”
