Jo Swinson is not only the government minister responsible for employment relations, consumer and postal affairs – she’s also the Lib Dems’ equalities minister. And she appears in November’s issue of Elle magazine backing its ‘Make Them Pay‘ campaign:
Today, we are proud to announce, the government has gotten behind us too. Women and Equalities minister Jo Swinson is urging all women to follow the advice in The Feminist Times and Mother campaign: ‘If he does the same job as you, ask him his salary.’
Praising our initiative, that highlights that men are paid a 17.4 per cent more than women on average, Swinson says we all need to break a British taboo and start asking our male colleagues just how much they really earn – as it’s the only way we’ll stamp out inequality (it’s time to lose the fear!).
She also warned that if that approach does not work and businesses fail to take action to ensure pay equality, the government will force them to. In an exclusive interview with ELLE, equalities minister Jo Swinson said society should be encouraging people to open up about pay.
‘I think sometimes there’s something very British in our culture where we don’t talk about money, and I think that is one of things that holds women back. If women realised they were earning significantly less than male colleagues at a similar level that might be the catalyst they need to ask for a pay rise. I think ELLE are to be highly commended for this.’
However, she revealed her concern that the gender pay divide is not reducing fast enough and warned that if they didn’t take action she could force businesses to reveal how much more they pay men than women.
‘While the pay gap is reducing a bit, it’s not reducing enough.
‘I think we need to recognise that the Government does have the power to impose equal pay audits, and it may well be that if we do not see success through [voluntary schemes] that might be the only way to make this happen.’
Swinson, who has been a Member of Parliament since 2005, also backed our campaign to rebrand feminism.
‘I would absolutely call myself a feminist, without hesitating. And it makes me sad when you hear people don’t want to call themselves a feminist, whether they’re a bloke or a teenage girl, because they think the word has negative connotations.
‘Feminism is about equality between men and women and is something that will improve our society. We should be encouraging people to be happy to declare themselves as feminists. We need to be very clear about claiming that word as something positive.
‘It’s not about hating men, this is about creating a society where men and women working together can achieve more, rather than being pitted against each other in stereotypical archaic roles.’
We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.
You can read the piece in full on Elle magazine’s website here.
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20 Comments
Those involved in the field of equalities really should acknowledge where issues are cross-strand, and the pay gap is clearly more than a one-strand issue. For example there is a great deal of research (including from the DWP and Labour Force Survey) highlighting the “ethnic penalty” of pay disparities between Black & Ethnic Minorities and white employees. Indeed it is ten years since Tony Blair declared (http://www.irr.org.uk/pdf/em_labour_market.pdf) that government should eradicate that gap within ten years. As we have reached that deadline and if anything that gap has grown it is hardly surprising that government ministers are silent on the matter. It would be good if Jo could revisit this area along with gender.
There are of course some complications in this. We have an open pay banding system which covers all staff areas. This is fine for staff we employ directly, however a number have been transferred as part of TUPE. This means that any department can have people with differing pay levels doing the same or similar tasks. It needs to be clear that companies are responsible for ensuring that they have fair policies covering all aspects of equality whilst recognising that individuals may have differing pay and conditions as a result of following other legislation or regulations.
@Steve Way – I agree that policies for tackling the pay gap should tackle all aspects of equality. Too often tackling inequality for women means, in reality, white women.
A study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the University of Manchester found that:
> White women in full time employment fell 1% between 2001 and 2011 but fell by 11% for Caribbean women and 13% for African women in the same period.
> The proportion white unemployed women rose by 1% (to 5%) between 2001 and 2011 but rose 3% for Caribbean and African women in the same period (to 11% and 17% respectively).
I am not arguing that equalities minister Swinson should not be concerned by the gender pay gap. While any pay gap exists it must prompt politicians to tackle it.
However the pay gap is not a one-strand issue. It cuts across ethnicity, disabilities, age and more. And it is particularly stark when it comes to BAME communities.
In London, supposedly the engine-room for the British economy and by far the most diverse city with almost a third of the capital non-white, the GLA found a 13% gender pay gap (which had reduced marginally from 15% to 13.1% between 2006 and 2010), but a 25.2% ethnic pay gap which had increased from 23.8% in 2006.
White workers earned, on average, £14.38p per hour in London, compared to £10.75p for ethnic minorities.
Indeed, as I have mentioned, the gender pay gap is slowly reducing while the BAME pay gap was at a much higher level to begin with and is increasing.
The BAME pay gap needs to be considered together with disproportionate BAME unemployment as they are two sides of the same coin and the need to link the two factors is much stronger than with gender.
There should be no competition between different equalities strands, no hierarchy of equalities, however when one (gender) is grabbing ministers’ attention while another appears to be off the agenda that is a huge inconsistency, and one that Swinson should address.
@Lester Holloway
The best jobs in London are among the best jobs in the country, so one would expect the people working in the best jobs (for example in banks in the City) to be representative of the country (and to some extent the rest of Europe) as a whole, not of London, even if people doing them have moved to London. That means that even if there was no discrimination the figures you quote would still show a pay gap – do you know how much of the difference is due to discrimination and how much is dues to this “national” job effect?
@Richard S – There is no excuse for the City not to be diverse. The City and Docklands are surrounded by the most diverse boroughs in London. Getting an internship or graduate job in the City is tough, whatever your background but historically it has been even harder for those from ethnic minority communities, especially in what the City terms front office” positions, such as sales and trading at an investment bank or project management at a professional services firm.
BAME communities are increasing significantly outside London as well, yet only 5.5% of the top 100 FTSE companies have a BAME director, half the national population. if you exclude the foreign-born BAME directors (from the Far East, USA etc), the proportion of British-born BAME directors will be extremely low.
The fact is Britain has become more multicultural while the financial sector has lagged behind. It’s not especially a class issue; the City has a significant intake from the working classes. It is the exclusion of talented people of colour. Less than 1 in 15 ethnic minority workers in the UK hold a management position and on current trends, they constitute an even greater percentage of the future and emerging workforce. There is simply no excuse for this.
The number of BAME start-up businesses show the extent of entreprenuerial spirit yet this is not reflected by established firms, including old firms that have grown powerful on the back of exploitation with colonialism and enslavement.
Say what you like about Ken Livingstone but as mayor he was investing a lot of time persuading the City to change, making the business case for diversity. All this stopped under Boris. And, to our shame, we Lib Dems have had nothing to say on it in all the mayoral campaigns.
The relative lack of BAME people in the City is not the total picture anyway. The City and Docklands have a total workforce of 510,700, less than 10% of all London jobs. BAME unemployment has risen in recent years because the austerity cuts in the public sector have disproportionately hit BAME workers, including many middle-managers, whose parents were encouraged to enter this sector often at low levels in order to keep our public services going from the post-war period to the late 70’s.
All workforce studies looking at ethnicity has shown Britain’s employers have hired a far lower percentage of BAME workers compared to the available market over several decades – through good economic times and bad – and this unchanging pattern is not justified by qualifications as the extent of higher achievers academically has continually increased from BAME communities.
Rather it is about attitudes; self-replicating tendancies of employers especially in industries where connections and recommendations play a stronger part, and deep rooted stereotypes about certain applicants ‘fitting in’. In other words, casual and unconscious racism.
I would also say that as well as the superiority aspect of it extending over all other areas of equality, that it often extends over all areas of politics, especially men. Three times as many men killing themselves as women? Pftt, not our problem – seems to be the attitude of feminists.
This leads to factionism. The very action of calling oneself a feminist and believing that everybody else should do so has an element of superiority to it.
I make my comments with the best personal wishes, but I do value honest debate.
Yes the surrounding boroughs are diverse, but the City (and other top national jobs in London) are not reserved for Londoners and nor should they be. That is not to say there isn’t underrepresentation of all manner of groups of people in top jobs.
If we are interested in learning about the effects of company discrimination, what would be more interesting would be to compare average wages for white people with X number of GCSEs born and still living in, say, Lewisham, with average wages for black people with the same number of GCSEs born and still living in Lewisham. I don’t know if date like that exists though.
Unless Jo Swinson will bring forward legislation that prevents companies from banning staff disclosing their pay to peers, which in many companies is grounds for dismissal, then it seems a half baked proposal from someone who probably hasnt been employed much outside the Westminster bubble.
Lester is right to say that the City does not yet reflect the same % of BAME people as the London population but wrong to put it down to discrimination- the City is one of the most meritocratic workforces on the planet.
There is no room for complacency of course and many city firms are recruiting more people from the surrounding boroughs – but they often lack the academic qualifications needed for a lot of the roles.
I also think ( I have not seen any data so this is supposition) that some BAME communities are much better represented than others – people of SE Asian origin in Finance jobs for example.
Also worrying to my mind is the failure of BAME people ( and indeed those from the surrounding Boroughs of all ethnicities) to get jobs in the services which support the City – why are so many of the coffee houses, restaurants and bars in the City staffed by people from Eastern Europe for example? We should look at what skills workers who live locally need to be able to get those jobs.
@ Simon
“Lester is right to say that the City does not yet reflect the same % of BAME people as the London population but wrong to put it down to discrimination- the City is one of the most meritocratic workforces on the planet.”
Assuming of course that you regard a lot of what the City does as of merit rather than merely an overhead on the real economy that has got out of control. 🙂
@Richard S
Hopefully I didn’t suggest that City jobs should be “reserved” for anyone! I was highlighting the under-representation of BAME people in this sector and suggesting there was no excuse for it. This is particularly the case as the City draws a high proportion of it’s employees from the south whereas half the BAME population resides in London, so the north/south divide should, in theory, work in favour of BAME people, but the facts show quite the opposite. The generational impact of racism (and the desire to protect against it) has played a large part in concentrating BAME communities in deprived areas and this has a replicating effect whereby the neighbourhood acts as a further barrier to social mobility.
If we believe – as we should do – that all are equal then the fact that BAME communities are more likely to live in low income households indicates that a proportion of them should not be there in the first place. 65% of Bangladeshis, 50% of Pakistanis and 30% of Black Africans are in low income compared to 10% for White British. Believing in equality, that means if society was equal 55% of Bangladeshis, 40% of Pakistanis and 20% of Africans who are currently low income should not be there.
In theory the longer a community are in Britain the more inequalities in social class profiles should dispel, however that is clearly not the case. While Indians have improved their social class profiles over time other BAME communities have progressed extremely slowly over generations. There are complex patterns but the overall picture is that something is holding several BAME communities back other than educational attainment and class. The huge movement, particularly amongst the Caribbean community, from ‘working class’ to ‘intermediate class’ (ie professional careers) has not be reflected in all professions. Some have been open and benefit from the incoming talent while others, including the financial sector, have kept the door mainly shut.
When certain professions are more closed to BAME talent than others we have to conclude that it isn’t so much about GCSE results as attitudes within the profession. So I return (once again!) to the same point as my last comment: racism. No excuses.
I think Lester and others, you need to get used to the fact that in some area’s there will be an under representation of BAME and in others an over representation. This is a natural phenomenon both of the real world and sampling: namely if you search hard enough you’ll find a sample that satisfies your viewpoint – for example I note that among Indian takeaways there is an under representation of non-Indian communities.
Whilst we should keep up the pressure on equality of opportunity and pay, we shouldn’t forget to celebrate our successes:
“Women made up 19% of FTSE 100 directors on 1 October, up from 17.4% in May this year and 12.5% from three years ago.” [Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24425340%5D
@Roland
So are infant mortality rates among Caribbean and Pakistani babies – double the rate for white babies – a “natural phenomenon”? Should we just “get used to the fact”?
Are stop and search figures (with use of s.60 requiring no reasonable grounds) showing black youths up to 40 times more likely to be stopped a “natural phenomenon”? And should we just “get used to the fact”?
The fact that Caribbean pupils are three times as likely to be permenently excluded… is that too a “natural phenomenon”? And should we just “get used to the fact”?
The fact that rates of poverty are for Africans double and for Pakistanis and Bangladeshis up to three times more than white people a “natural phenomenon”? And should we just “get used to the fact”?
I have already talked about unemployment and the wage gap above, and there are many other areas where the statistics are clear.
Is this all just the natural state of affairs Roland?
We are all equal and therefore disproportionality is unnatural and must be addressed. To write all this off as a “natural phenomenon” is to spit on the preamble to our party’s constitution that talks about equality and freedom. We cannot have one without the other.
Personally, Roland, I do not believe you are a Liberal. And if you are you shouldn’t be.
@ Lester Holloway
I think you are in danger of taking Roland’s counter point, twisting it beyond recognition and then using it to denigrate him, perhaps because he points to a flaw in your argument. Being a Liberal usually involves not doing that.
@Lester
The context was employment and specifically equality of pay and opportunity. Just because parts of London may have a higher population of BAME people, doesn’t automatically mean that all job sectors in London including “the City” should reflect this and as I suggested there are natural and normal reasons for this. The challenge, which I didn’t spell out, is to sift the wheat from the chaff, identify those factors that are skewing the figures and then determine if there is something that can and should be done about it. As I pointed out, the workers in Indian takeaways largely come from specific ethnic communities, should we do something about it? or do we just accept it as a takeaway isn’t really ‘authentic’ unless it was cooked by a chef from that community?
If being a liberal does not mean ‘drawing a line in the sand’ and say enough is enough then together with most other advocates for and within the equality and diversity arena I am not very liberal and will remain so.
Race discrimination along with other bigotries against fellow humans is not ‘natural’ but learnt, so change is far easier to achieve in the short term through positive action than waiting for Darwin’s evolutionary cycle to progress matters. Unless we all accept that this kind of discrimination is unacceptable and do something to stop it, then it will continue.
As for the people working in so-called Indian restaurants/takeaways, the ethnicity of the serving staff has little to do with the cuisine but actually the working hours etc and the restaurant owners really do not care what the ethnicity of their serving staff is. In fact in some areas having European staff would be a distinct advantage, and such staff would not be subjected to the relentless verbal and at times physical abuse that many are prone to receive from inebriated nationalists who see no irony in abusing the staff who cook and serve up their preferred ‘traditional’ Friday/Saturday night cuisine.
As I have said numerous times in other threads race discrimination and other bigotries such as homophobia and sexism as well as that which exists against people who are deemed as disabled is simply wrong. It is not a theoretical issue, but real. The victims and those closest to them are emotionally and physically harmed by this behaviour and society becomes a little less pleasant with each incident.
I will ask the theoretical members of the Liberal Democrat Party (a Party that I specifically joined because of its stated values regarding equality and fairness) a simple question “When are you going to join those of us who are striving to create the equitable society that you speak of supporting? for life is not an extension of the cosy and safe University Debating Society of ones youth, it is real?”
A few facts about the BME restaurant trade: There are now 12,000 so-called Indian restaurants in the UK with an estimated annual turnover of £4.2 billion, plus they directly employing around 100,000 people. Pretty impressive eh! Unfortunately a large percentage of this industry believes that the Tory party supports their businesses interests albeit its stance on immigration is causing severe problems for recruitment, as well as personal problems.
@Roland
We are all equal. Therefore any “sifting of wheat from chaf” should not result in such a low proportion of BAME people in the City.
End of!