Women's Views on News |
- Examining the PIP breast implant affair
- Birmingham’s huge equal pay bill
- Women’s work stressful, underpaid
| Examining the PIP breast implant affair Posted: 13 Mar 2014 07:30 AM PDT
On March 16, 2010, officials from the French Health Security Agency (AFSSAPS) made a preannounced visit in Southern France to a manufacturer of silicone breast implants called PIP ('Poly Implants Prothese'). On returning secretly to the site the following day, they found evidence that the manufacture of the implants, and the materials used to fill them carried out by PIP, was shoddy, inadequate, and fraudulent. Material used in the manufacturing process contained the chemicals Baysilone, Silopren and Rhodorsil used elsewhere as a fuel additive or in the manufacture of industrial rubber tubing. The company was immediately shut down. This visit set in motion a chain of events across the world that was seen as a 'scare' in the UK, but a 'scandale' in France. Tens of thousands of women have been affected in France and the UK alone. Dr Melanie Latham's paper 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it?': Scares, Scandals and Cosmetic Surgery Regulation in France and the UK' examines the PIP breast implant affair. She will be presenting it as part of the first-ever 'Humanities in Public' programme, taking place at Manchester Metropolitan University and running until 2 June. At the time France already had in place strict regulatory controls of the cosmetic surgery sector and reacted quickly and forcibly to protect patients affected. By contrast this salutary tale highlighted shortcomings of regulation in the UK sufficiently enough to lead to renewed calls for its reassessment and tightening. Women cosmetic surgery patients have been left in pain, in fear and out of pocket. Has the law let them down once again? For several years Dr Melanie Latham has been interested in how regulators can enhance rather than diminish the autonomy of their citizens through legislation. She worked originally in Political Science, moved on to Law and Society, and published 'Regulating Reproduction: a century of conflict in Britain and France', which looked at the influence of feminist, medical and religious interest groups on the development of reproductive rights in twentieth century Britain and France. Her research interests have become delineated by ideas around autonomy, rights and gender and are focussed currently upon the regulation of cosmetic surgery and patient autonomy. She is presenting her paper on 17 March at 5.30pm in the Geoffrey Manton Lecture Theatre 4 – after tea and coffee in Geoffrey Manton atrium from 5.00pm. Humanities in Public (HiP) is a busy and colourful festival of topical events and activities hosted by the Institute of Humanities and Social Science Research (IHSSR) at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU). To see the full programme click here. These talks are completely free events and everyone is very welcome, but you need a ticket. For tickets for Dr Melanie Latham's talk, click here.  |
| Birmingham’s huge equal pay bill Posted: 13 Mar 2014 04:35 AM PDT
Instead, they paid London lawyers ‘to defend the indefensible’. Many former cooks, cleaners and carers are now eligible for up to £100,000 after proving unfair discrimination. Up to 5,000 women may benefit from the UK Supreme Court’s decision in 2010 to award equal pay compensation after the Employment Tribunal decided that bonus payments made to large numbers of men, mostly employed as refuse collectors, street cleaners and road workers, were discriminatory. Judges were told that women employed as cooks, cleaners and care assistants were routinely denied bonuses similar to those given to employees in male-dominated areas of work; one refuse collector took home nearly £51,000 in a year when a woman on the same pay grade earned less than £12,000. And Birmingham City Council, England's largest local authority, now faces a legal and compensatory bill of more than £1 billion. It has also been criticised for not settling its pay discrimination case earlier. Chris Benson, one of the lawyers representing more than 5000 thousand women making equal pay claims, said: “There are a number of ways Birmingham could have avoided owing these huge sums of money. “They could have settled with the workers they underpaid instead of paying London lawyers to defend the indefensible for two years. “They could, of course, have paid the women fairly at the time, as other councils did. “Instead they are now left with so much to pay as they owe these women many years of wages, with interest on top. “They could have also stopped paying the men bonuses sooner. We showed that, even when they knew they had a problem, they still tried new pay systems that contrived to pay the men more.” The Council's bill has not surprisingly become increasingly political. Gisela Stuart, Labour MP for Birmingham Edgbaston told BBC Radio 4 that: 'The previous Tory-led council could have settled. They kept challenging the court decisions time and time again.' Previously, the government had loaned Birmingham City Council £530 million at low cost to help fund the settlements. Months of speculation about the Council's ability to pay its costs then followed a Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) announcement that it would not allow the local authority to take out any more loans. After an extensive review of its property portfolio, the Council announced that it would sell the city's National Exhibition Centre (NEC). The NEC is considered by many to be one of the Council's crown jewels, and contributes approximately £2 billion to the local economy. Property experts estimate that sale of the centre could raise upwards of £300 million. Trade unions acting on behalf of the women have agreed a schedule of payments, with £120 million due this year and £154 million due in 2015. The Council has already made £450 million of settlement payments.  |
| Women’s work stressful, underpaid Posted: 13 Mar 2014 02:09 AM PDT
An international report has found women in more underpaid, stressful and inflexible work compared to male counterparts. In a report published recently by the British Sociological Association (BSA), academics tested out their hypothesis that women 'trade in' high-powered careers for lower quality, lower paid jobs in order to access more job flexibility. Discussing the basis for the research, a spokesperson for the BSA told the Huffington Post UK: “It's been commonly thought that women take jobs with lower pay and fewer prospects in order to benefit from having more flexibility, so that they have more time to spend at home with their children." Indeed, an Equality and Human Rights Commission report in 2009 found that skilled workers, particularly women, were dropping out of the workforce or choosing lower-paid, lower-skilled part-time work in order to balance work and family life. However the new BSA report, published last month in a journal called Work, Employment and Society, tells a different story. Professor Meir Yaish from the University of Haifa and Professor Haya Stier of Tel Aviv University analysed survey data collected on the working conditions of 9,000 women and 8,500 men in 27 industrialised countries, including the UK. The survey measured areas such as probability for advancement, job security, time autonomy, emotional conditions and job content and quality. The results showed that not only did women report lower pay, less opportunity for advancement and lower quality in job content but also less autonomy in working hours and less job security. And the findings showed that on average men reported less stress and exhaustion from their work (5 per cent lower) and less insecurity in their job (2 per cent lower). Men also gave answers that were 8 per cent higher than women's when asked about their income and opportunities for promotion, and 15 per cent higher when asked about whether they had control over their schedule, their time off and what time they started and ended work. "The findings show that women lag behind men on most dimensions of job quality," the researchers remarked in a BSA press release. "This result runs counter to the expectation that women’s occupations compensate for their low wages and limited opportunities for promotion by providing better employment conditions.” Frances O'Grady, General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress, told the Huffington Post UK that “These findings will come as no surprise to the millions of working women in the UK involved in the daily juggle between the competing demands of work and caring." The report shows that gender inequality in the workplace is an international problem, with the study’s authors concluding that "women enjoy hardly any advantage over men in the labour market". However, the researchers also found that the more women there were in a profession or trade, the more equal conditions became in most aspects of work, proving that female representation in the workplace is the first step to closing the gender gap.  |
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