Women's Views on News |
| Women workers’ rights at risk with Brexit Posted: 25 May 2016 02:09 PM PDT
Voting to leave the European Union – or for Brexit – in the referendum on 23 June would mean risking "turning the clock back decades" on women's rights, according to a new report published by the TUC earlier this week. The report – 'Women workers' rights and the risks of Brexit' – highlights the huge gains women have made in the workplace since Britain joined the EU. And the report says the European Union (EU) has been instrumental in empowering working women and enabling them to challenge unequal pay and inequality at work. The gains include: Equal pay for work of equal value – Amendments to the Equal Pay Act required by EU law have allowed hundreds of thousands of low-paid women to win pay claims against employers who undervalued their work. The original Equal Pay Act only gave women equal pay with men in the same job or grade. However, amendments won by unions in the EU allowed women in the UK to challenge employers if they weren't getting equal pay for work of equal value. In the past decade alone more than 300,000 women have taken equal pay claims, many based on the principle of equal pay for work of equal value. These include low-paid women workers, such as dinner ladies, carers and cleaners. Even the Dagenham Ford sewing machinists – whose strikes laid the ground for the Equal Pay Act – gained a pay rise from the new equal pay for work of equal value rules. They used them more than a decade after their original strike to get their jobs put on to a higher grade. Paid holidays for part-time women workers – The introduction of the Working Time Directive in 1998 resulted in more than 1.5 million part-time women workers gaining the right to paid holidays for the first time. Around 430,000 women workers a year have a new baby and rely on EU rights like paid time off for ante-natal appointments and protection from pregnancy and maternity discrimination EU law required the UK government to make protection from dismissal because of pregnancy a day one right. Without this right 1 in 5 pregnant workers (80,000) would not be able to claim, as the UK government's qualifying period for other forms of unfair dismissal is 2 years. EU law also strengthened protection from discrimination because of pregnancy or maternity leave. The right to parental leave was also won at EU level. Hundreds of thousands of parents, particularly single mothers, rely on this right each year to help them balance work with childcare. Pregnancy discrimination – EU law required the UK government to make protection from dismissal because of pregnancy a day one right. Without this right women would have to wait 2 years before pursuing a claim of unfair dismissal. Part-time women workers have been one of the chief beneficiaries of EU law. Part-time women workers were the group most likely not to have paid holidays before the Working Time Directive was implemented in 1998. It resulted in more than 1.5 million part-time women workers getting paid holiday for the first time. EU sex discrimination law has also given over half a million part-time women workers access to unfair dismissal rights and statutory redundancy pay. EU law has also made it mandatory for part-time women to have equal access to pensions. To read this report in full, click here. The 'Women workers' rights and the risks of Brexit' report comes just weeks after leading employment lawyer Michael Ford QC warned that leaving the EU would mean "all the social rights in employment currently required by EU law would be potentially vulnerable". The TUC commissioned an independent legal opinion from Ford on the consequences of Brexit for UK employment law and workers' rights. To read that, click here. Leaving the EU, the TUC said, would allow a government with a deregulatory agenda to make much more sweeping changes to employment law, such as reducing paid holidays, parental leave entitlements, and discrimination protections for pregnant workers. Or, as Ford put it: "It is difficult to overstate the significance of EU law in protecting against sex discrimination." The TUC’s General Secretary, Frances O'Grady, said: "Women have made huge gains in the workplace as a result of EU membership, ranging from protection against pregnancy discrimination to fairer pay, holiday and pensions. "Brexit risks turning the clock black decades on these hard-won rights. "I think we should all be very worried when we hear leading Brexiters like Priti Patel describing EU social and employment protections as 'burdens'. "These laws have helped to improve the lives of millions of working women," O’Grady continued. "If we pull out of Europe all the leading employment law experts agree that it will be worse for workers' rights. "And it is women who stand to lose most."  |
| Disgust over pay gaps leads to strike Posted: 25 May 2016 08:25 AM PDT
The University and College Union’s planned two-day national strike at UK universities is going ahead – is going on now – as part of a now long-running dispute over various aspects of staff pay. University and College Union (UCU) members in higher education will be walking out on both 25 May and 26 May. Staff will also begin working to contract from 25 May, which means they will refuse to work overtime, set additional work or undertake any voluntary duties like covering timetabled classes for absent colleagues. If no agreement is reached in the coming weeks, members have agreed to target further strike action in June and July, and are considering additional action in August to coincide with the release of A-level results. The union is also beginning preparations for a boycott of the setting and marking of students’ work, to begin in the autumn if an acceptable offer has still not been made. The dispute has arisen following a pay offer of 1.1 per cent from the employer's body, the Universities and Colleges Employers’ Association (UCEA), which the union has described as ‘an insult’. UCU said universities could afford to pay more and that the latest offer does little to address the real terms pay cut of 14.5 per cent suffered by higher education staff since 2009. The squeeze on staff salaries comes at a time when pay and benefits for university leaders have increased, on average, by 3 per cent, with the average pay and pensions package for vice-chancellors standing at over £270,000. A survey on higher education pay published on 19 May 2016 by Times Higher Education (THE) revealed that the average pay rise for the majority of academic staff was just 1.3 per cent while vice-chancellors received an average increase in their salary and benefits of 5.1 per cent. And once large pay-outs to departing vice-chancellors are included the figure is even higher – at 6.1 per cent. The union branded the disparity a ‘disgrace’ and said universities need to consider how they would continue to attract the best academic staff while pay for the majority of staff was being held down. English colleges’ reliance on insecure contracts, including zero-hours contracts, was laid bare in a report from UCU published in April 2016. The report found that 34 per cent of the total teaching staff in 220 English further education colleges were employed on a range of insecure contracts. Amongst non-lecturing staff who are delivering the curriculum, the proportion was even higher at 37 per cent. And anecdotal evidence backed up by research has suggested that insecure contracts undermine teachers’ ability to do a good job as they often have poor access to facilities and training, can only get their job done by putting in unpaid hours, and are constantly stressed about future availability of work. Insecure contracts in further education refer to 'variable hours' contracts, hourly-paid contracts, term-time only contracts and staff employed by agencies. When looking at the subject in 2015, union pointed out that it was a myth that zero-hours contracts offered a fair and sensible deal for workers and employers. UCU said people who wanted the security of a proper contract should be given it. The union said the extent of casualisation in colleges and universities would probably shock many students and parents. Research at that point showed that 61 per cent of colleges and 53 per cent of universities had teaching staff employed on zero-hours contracts. And in March the UCU published a report highlighting the colleges and universities that pay female staff significantly less than men. The report, 'Holding Down Women's Pay', named and shamed the top 30 English further education colleges with the largest gender pay gaps amongst lecturing staff. A further three league tables show the top 30 UK universities with the largest gender pay gaps amongst academic staff, professors and academic-related staff. At nearly two-thirds (132 out of 203) of the English further education colleges that provided data to UCU, male lecturers are paid on average £1,000 more than women. Kirklees College in Yorkshire topped the chart of English colleges, paying female lecturers an average £5,959 less than their male colleagues – a pay gap of 19.3 per cent. In the ten worst offending colleges, the pay gap between the average pay for women and men is greater than 8 per cent. In higher education, the average shortfall faced by female academics was £6,103 a year. According to the union’s data, just eight higher education institutions paid women equally or more than men. At 154 institutions, women are paid less. The higher education institution with the largest gender pay gap amongst academic staff was the University of Leicester, where women earn £9,793 less than men. The institution with the largest gender pay gap amongst professors was City University in London, where female professors earned an average £15,992 less than their male colleagues – a pay gap of 16.4 per cent. Bangor University in Wales had the most unequal pay amongst academic-related staff, with women earning an average £3,355 less than men – a pay gap of 7.9 per cent. Remarking on this at the time, UCU general secretary Sally Hunt said: ‘These colleges and universities should not have allowed such shameful levels of pay inequality to persist. "It’s nearly 50 years since the Equal Pay Act came into force and they’re still flying in the face of it." In January, the union wrote to 246 English colleges asking them to stop using zero-hours contracts and to work with UCU to review the use of all forms of non-permanent contracts. Overall just 14 per cent (36) of those colleges said they were open to working with UCU to address the issue of precarious work. Three fifths of the colleges (146) failed to respond to UCU’s letter. Thirty-five of the top 50 worst offenders ignored or responded negatively to UCU’s request. Speaking about today's strike action, UCU's general secretary, Sally Hunt said: "Members in higher education have sent a clear message to employers that, after six years of real-terms pay cuts amounting to 14.5 per cent, they will not tolerate a continued squeeze on their income. "Industrial action which impacts on students is never taken lightly, but staff feel that they have been left with no alternative. "A 1.1 per cent offer is an insult to the hard work and dedication of higher education staff, particularly in light of the 3 per cent average pay rise enjoyed by vice-chancellors this year. "The ball is now in UCEA’s court, but the employers need to come back to the table with a much improved offer if they wish to avoid significant disruption to students in the coming months."  |
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