Editor's view, Inside Track, May 2010
A shift towards achieving equal pay
Recently the Guardian published an article about maverick lawyer Stefan Cross’ latest victory – achieving equal pay for 4,000 female workers at Birmingham City Council. Curiosity piqued, I stumbled across another article about a Merseyside Law Firm who warns small businesses about similar lawsuits with the words “not only would such claims be cripplingly expensive they would also be a huge distraction, incredibly disruptive and dreadful for morale.”
Dreadful for morale?
Not only do female managers earn about 20-30% less than their male counterparts in the EU, but also only a mere 3% of Fortune 500 companies have a female CEO – welcome to the infamous ‘glass ceiling’. So here is a deliberately provocative question for all male readers: What would you think about a 30% salary reduction and your chance of landing the top job suddenly only equal to the odds of a bet on a single number at the roulette table? I am sure you wouldn’t entertain this idea…so why should women?
Moreover, why is this issue so difficult to solve? It is one of the big adaptive challenges of organisations of any kind: because it is perhaps THE easiest way to save cost, and because any positive changes to one gender will be seen as a loss for the other – even though they won’t earn a penny less, but the perceived power gap will narrow.
So what does it take to shift attitudes and underlying power bases?
It’s not enough to get your horse to the water, you actually have to make it drink. For a true culture shift to happen, the opposing decision makers who have a stake in the equality agenda need to come together and find the right solutions together (bankrupt local authorities are no good either). The ‘Coalition for Better Health’ could be a role model where government departments, NGOs and commercial enterprises tackle the big health issues of our time including obesity and alcohol abuse. So where is the national leadership on gender equality?
