Latest news with #payequity
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Why Labour's plan to expose everyone's pay is bad news
When Pimlico Plumbers' staff revealed their salaries to each other for a reality TV show in 2012, it turned things upside had assumed people doing the same jobs would be paid the same, but that wasn't the case at all. The exercise revealed pay discrepancies of up to £9,000. To restore order, managing director Charlie Mullins had to reluctantly agree to foot the bill for pay rises. 'It cost me a few quid once people found out what their colleagues were making. I had to put more money into the wages pot, and we did uncover some huge pay differences between people doing similar jobs. There was even a spectacular resignation from one guy who didn't get a pay rise,' recalls Mullins, who sold the business in 2021 and launched home repairs service WeFix last year. This social experiment may be about to take place in workplaces across Britain. Labour may force employers to publish salary bands, and make pay information available to employees. The idea is that by requiring employers to be more open about pay structures, salary ranges, and progression criteria, it becomes easier to identify and correct inequalities where people are doing the same or similar jobs. But this could have side effects, experts suggest, such as forcing business owners to hand out pay rises they can't afford, sparking resentment among colleagues and even pushing down high earners' salaries. Mullins believes salary transparency laws are really about the Government 'meddling' in how businesses are run. 'I'm all for transparency,' he says. 'But this government has no clue about running a business, so they should leave well alone.' Nearly half of employers now anticipate they will have to stump up for unexpected pay rises as a result of the Government's proposed changes, with 60pc expecting more requests for pay negotiations, according to a survey by HR and financial advisory WTW. Nyree Ambarchian, who runs communications agency Jack & Grace, introduced a transparent pay system in 2022. But she hadn't anticipated that this would lead to the company paying some of its staff more. She had to offer a higher salary to a prospective employee to match her previous one, but that had a knock-on effect. 'It wasn't just that person we needed to worry about, because we already employed somebody at exactly the same level,' she adds. 'So in making that hiring decision, the real cost to us wasn't just the extra that new person was looking for, but also the uplift in an existing member's pay.' Wages getting pushed up like this is an added burden for small businesses that are already feeling a huge crunch. From April this year, employers began paying National Insurance contributions at a higher rate of 15pc, starting at a lower threshold, while the minimum wage for those aged over 21 was increased. Environmental consultancy Tyler Grange introduced a fully transparent salary structure last year for its 85 employees. As a result of the process, the company had to give out a number of additional pay rises, says managing director Jon Berry. 'It was often as an inconsequential result of someone joining us from another organisation or because we'd needed to attract a key recruit within a highly competitive market,' Berry explains. He says that introducing salary transparency cost the business around £30,000. Despite the unscheduled pay rises, Berry believes going transparent has made the recruitment process more streamlined as salary expectations are clear. Current team members know what they need to do to get promoted and what future salaries might look like. In Ambarchian's case, the agency conducts yearly reviews and has funds put aside for when unique situations arise. Mullins says of his experiment: 'At times I wished I'd never given the go-ahead for the project, but things settled down after a few weeks, and I think once everything was out in the open, the company was better for the transparency. People stopped being suspicious of how much their mate at the next desk was making.' Lost talent and lower wages Yet, having transparent salaries can cause confusion and create resentment if bosses don't properly communicate, says Justine Woolf, of Innecto Reward Consulting. For example, an employer can publicise that a role falls into a certain salary bracket, but employees don't always understand why they are paid an exact amount within the band, and are frustrated when they don't move up. 'Say the salary band for a role is £30,000 to £50,000. The market rate for your job might be £35,000, but a high performer in the same band might earn £45,000. Employers don't always clearly explain the difference. This can lead to a feeling of unfairness,' says Woolf. In the US, where 15 of its 50 states have mandated some form of salary disclosure, organisations have lost talent, and wages of some high earners have actually fallen. For example, a law in California introduced in 2010 requiring municipal salaries to be posted online led to a 7pc drop in salaries for top managers, and a 75pc increase in the resignation rate, according to the US National Bureau of Economic Research. For others it could mean their salaries increase at a slower rate. In 2006, Denmark began requiring companies to be transparent about pay bands, leading to a reduction in the gender pay gap – at the expense of salary increases for men. High performers can also be impacted when salary transparency prompts an employer to pay two people a similar rate to avoid conflict, even if one deserves more, according to a study published in Nature Human Behaviour, a journal. 'People could become demotivated if they feel, 'I've put in all that effort, and I've got very little return in terms of internal movement. Am I really valued for my contribution?'' says Woolf. 'And that's when people will start to think about going elsewhere.' Lee Holmes, chief of NFINOX Global, which has transparent salary bands, predicts that the rise of salary transparency will spotlight the disproportionate number of people in the finance industry earning unexplainably high salaries. It could see many of them jump ship to protect those large figures, rather than risk a pay cut. London-based Holmes believes that transparency shouldn't hold genuinely high performers back. Companies which set salary bands and make them known across the company should still reward people based on what they've achieved rather than what a salary band dictates, he says. He has suffered from this himself, he adds. 'I was once doing a job that encompassed four or five different roles, and when I asked for more money to reflect that, I was told that my job title was linked to a certain salary, and that was it.' He left that role not long after. Holmes' observation overall is that it is often the most vocal people who end up on higher pay, whereas those who quietly get on with their job often don't get recognised. 'I do think that once [salary transparency] comes out these people will get found out, and if they do, then great,' he says. 'It creates a better working environment for everyone else.'
RNZ News
3 days ago
- Business
- RNZ News
Community support workers among NZ's lowest paid
They are among New Zealand's lowest paid employees. The wages of home and community support workers, who look after the country's elderly, typically max out about $29 an hour. They also use their own vehicles to travel between jobs and, while they're reimbursed for that, it's at an amount significantly less than IRD recommends for personal vehicle use. The issue was part of a pay equity claim by the female dominated workforce, who consider themselves underpaid in comparison to those dominated by men. That's now off the table after the government changed the law last month. Jimmy Ellingham reports. To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
The Guardian
17-06-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Salary secrets: pay transparency is great – until you hear what your slacker colleague earns
Name: Pay transparency. Age: Merely a twinkle in government ministers' eyes. Appearance: Potentially a bit can of worms-y. You can't have a problem with pay transparency. It's a good thing! It is! It highlights and helps tackle gender, ethnicity, age and disability pay gaps for a start, which is why the UK government is looking at ways to promote more openness around what people earn. They should make nonsensically vague salary info in job ads illegal for starters. Don't tell me it's 'competitive' – tell me if I'll be able to afford to eat. You're in luck – one suggestion is making employers include salary bracket or specific salary in job ads. Others include banning asking candidates about their pay history and making the provision of clear information on pay structures and career progression mandatory. Didn't the EU do something similar recently? Yes, the EU Pay Transparency Directive, which comes into force next year, introduces similar measures – it also bans pay secrecy clauses, which stop employees from discussing their salaries with colleagues. Good stuff. So what is the problem? Well, speaking of discussing what you earn, one of the other measures the UK is considering is 'providing employees with information on their pay level and how their pay compares with those doing the same role or work of equal value'. So? That sounds positive. You know your colleague, Darren? The wastrel who moseys in at five to 10, scrolls through his socials for an hour then disappears to the gents until 12, takes two hours for lunch and leaves at four? Yep, that Darren. Well, imagine finding out he's earning 20 grand more than you? Is he????? I don't know. But what if, under these new proposed rules, you found out that he was? I would go full Godzilla, ripping through the open space screaming, tearing out cables and kicking over bins. You see the problem. There's a certain potential for, let's say, tension, if people find out they're earning less than their colleagues (especially crap ones). But, come on, how likely is it that employers will be forced, or choose, to reveal specific individualised information on who earns exactly what? Admittedly, very unlikely – this is all still theoretical. But look what happened when the BBC published pay bracket information on presenters? All hell broke loose! You mean a scandalous gender pay gap was exposed and addressed? I see your point. But we're funny about money – a 2021 poll found 36% of British people don't even tell their spouses what they earn. Pay transparency provisions are definitely a good thing, but this could get messy. Do say: 'So how much do you earn?' Don't say: '£7,840 more than you and I'm worth every penny, Darren.'
Telegraph
13-06-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
The football club that went woke is going broke
They became famous for being the first – and still only – football club to pay their women's team the same as their men's. But almost eight years after launching their 'Equality FC' campaign, Lewes have admitted they now face a fight to stick to that landmark commitment and even 'to keep the club running' this summer. In an extraordinary appeal to their fans they have revealed they need £120,000 to get through to the start of next season after only 'just' making it to the end of this campaign, as well as warning 'the next few weeks' will shape their entire future. So how has it come to this for a club who had sought to 'put an end to the excuses for why such a deep pay disparity has persisted in our sport'? Is the plight of Equality FC a vindication of those behind the catchphrase 'go woke, go broke'? To find answers requires going back to when Lewes faced going bust after the 2008 global financial crisis. Until then, a side from the Sussex town best known as the bonfire capital of the world had barely registered on the national stage, having spent their entire existence outside the professional game since being founded in 1885. After staving off a bankruptcy petition by HM Revenue & Customs, the club were taken into fan ownership 15 years ago as a Community Benefit Society, led by six supporters – calling themselves Rooks125 – who included some well-off benefactors. Having been relegated from what is now the National League the year before the takeover, the men's team suffered two further demotions under the new regime over the subsequent six years. In stark contrast, the women's team, formed in 2002 as Lewes Ladies, was thriving on the field and made it all the way to the third tier, following the merger with the men's side in 2014. Groundbreaking equality drive But the July 2017 announcement that they would become the first club to pay their men's and women's teams equally really put Lewes on the footballing map. As well as pledging to equalise the five-figure budget of both sides, they said they would provide the same resource for coaching and other staff, upgrade equipment and facilities, and invest in local grass roots to drive participation by boys and girls. The landmark news made headlines nationwide and beyond amid an explosion of interest in the women's game driven by England's Lionesses and the Women's Super League. It also came just two years after it emerged England men's captain Wayne Rooney was earning £300,000 per week compared to the £65,000 a year netted by women's counterpart Steph Houghton. As is common with the announcement of many equality drives, there was little public scrutiny at the time about the practicality of such a policy – although it would later emerge that this had caused a split amongst Lewes' board of directors. The move appeared to pay off spectacularly for the women's team when, despite having played only regional football since being established, they were subsequently chosen to join the new Women's Championship. Any fears the men's team would suffer as a result looked unfounded when they were promoted that same season to the Isthmian League Premier Division. Sponsors and Prosecco on tap 'Equality FC' helped attract sponsors such as Kappa, Marsden and Brighton and Hove Buses as the club introduced the likes of on-tap Prosecco, turned a beach hut (their version of a corporate box) into a nail bar, held chanting practice before women's matches and staged suffragette flash mobs. Lewes also began lobbying the Football Association to provide equal prize money in the men's and women's FA Cups. Within two years, they had quadrupled average women's attendances from around 120, including a record 1,958 for a league game against Manchester United. 'I joined a football club – I'm leaving a political party' But, despite soaring revenues, it was their efforts to compete with the relative financial might of the likes of United and Tottenham Hotspur that saw the first cracks emerge in the club's commitment to 'Equality FC'. Since coming under fan control, and without sufficient supporter owners to make them self-sustaining, Lewes had been relying on hundreds of thousands of pounds of loans from directors which were then written off. Those loans began to balloon after 2017 and, in September 2019, matters came to a head when one of the men who had helped rescue the club a decade earlier quit the board. In a scathing blog post explaining why, Barry Collins said he had become 'convinced that much of the hard work I and others had put in to building the club's reputation had been needlessly squandered'. He added: 'The club has become overwhelmed by the single issue of the equality campaign. I joined a football club and feel like I'm leaving a political party. 'I had my doubts about the pay parity initiative, I still do – my side bet is it will be abandoned as impractical once either of the first teams is promoted without the other. The equality campaign has become an internal crusade that trumps all else. 'A couple of directors suggested it should be the board's 'priority' to attend a literary festival the club was running an equality event at, instead of a game at Margate on the same day. My view was that we were running a football club, not a think-tank. 'There are some board members who can't seem to accept that some people's primary motivation for being part of a football club is the football, not the club's politics. In the end, I felt it best to go, rather than risk further confrontation.' Women's professionalism simply too costly Collins is chair of the Lewes FC Supporters Club and, asked by Telegraph Sport about his resignation, he stressed he had not been 'ideologically opposed to equality' but 'ideologically opposed to spending that much money that the club doesn't have'. He admitted that one of the ironies of Equality FC was that the second-tier women's team became more expensive to run than the seventh-tier men's due to the cost of creeping professionalisation in the Championship. Yet the commitment had remained to provide both with the same budget and, as the coronavirus crisis struck, Lewes continued to rely on written-off director loans. So much so that, by the summer of 2023, more than £2 million had been pumped into the club since Equality FC was launched. Almost two thirds of that was provided in 2021-22 and 2022-2023 by two outgoing board members, Ed Ramsden and Charlie Dobres, who were never likely to be able to keep bankrolling the club. Lewes were still being feted for 'Equality FC', including receiving a number of diversity awards, not harmed by providing a home at their 3,000-capacity stadium, The Dripping Pan, to a 10ft statue of two 18th century bisexual female pirates. They were also handed a £750,000 grant via the Premier League Stadium Fund for a new carpet-hybrid pitch at the ground. And, in arguably the biggest match in their history, they hosted United in the quarter-final of the 2023 Women's FA Cup in front of a record 2,801 crowd. 'A never-ending cycle of boom and bust' Financial salvation, and more, then appeared to arrive in the shape of a proposed takeover of the women's team by Mercury 13 as part of a £79.1 million investment into clubs worldwide. But this proved even more divisive, with Collins part of a group of eight former board members – including one of the original six behind the CBS – writing an open letter opposing the move. It read: 'Over the past few years, the club has sacrificed sustainability at the expense of chasing on-field success. The investment has driven the women's team to unprecedented heights. But competing with clubs such as Manchester United and Liverpool has come at a considerable financial cost. 'Directors' donations have climbed steeply over the past five years. In the last financial year alone, one director donated £600,000. That level of donations simply isn't sustainable. 'We believe the answer is not to return to private ownership, with all the risks that entails. Instead, we believe the answer is to remain a 100 per cent community-owned club that finds its natural place in the football pyramid. Private ownership leads almost every football club in the UK through a never-ending cycle of boom and bust. And usually leaves supporters as powerless bystanders and the townsfolk as the bank of last resort.' Takeover and investment plans shelved The deal was put to a vote of the club's 2,573 fan owners and although 67.8 per cent of those who participated were in favour, turnout was just 42 per cent, sparking concerns there was not enough support for the move. It was abandoned, with Lewes even citing the fact that it would have contravened their 'core principles of equality' because it would have resulted in a cash bonanza for the women but nothing for the men. The club later announced it was 'seeking legal advice' over a 'potential conflict of interest' during the Mercury 13 talks, which Telegraph Sport has been told did not find any wrongdoing. Things were also going awry on the field for the women's team, who found themselves in a relegation dogfight which they lost in April last year despite a crowd of 2,614 cheering them on against eventual champions Crystal Palace. That spelt the end of almost £500,000-a-year of FA funding and television revenue and, without access to the director loans that had sustained them, the club slashed their budget for the women's and – therefore correspondingly – the men's teams. By then, not even record average league attendances for both sides could mask the plight facing Lewes and there were calls for the Equality FC campaign to be scrapped, including from Dobres's wife, Karen, a former club director who had been instrumental in promoting it. She and others advocated a move to what they called 'equity', which would involve the women's team being given a bigger budget than the men's in the hope both would ultimately benefit. Instead, Lewes recently floated the idea of launching an investment scheme from which owners could make a financial return but the plans, which contravened the principles under which the CBS had been founded, were quickly abandoned. That was towards the end of a season in which Lewes Women finished sixth in the 12-team National League Premier Division South. The men's team ended the campaign 13th in the 22-team Isthmian Premier. 'You are required to live beyond your means' Lewes's appeal for donations followed less than a month later in an open letter published on their website. It was written by Joe Short, who joined the board a year and a half earlier. Telling Telegraph Sport 'no one's really sure' what would happen if the money did not materialise, he was nevertheless confident the threat to Lewes was not existential. He added: 'It means that we have to shrink to such an extent that our playing budgets would just be relegation budgets.' He also said there were no immediate plans to abandon Equality FC, which had brought income and attention to the club, and that the club were victims of what had become 'aggressively high' licensing requirements at the summit of women's football. Those requirements saw Blackburn Rovers become the second club to withdraw from the Championship in the past two seasons – after Reading did so last year – and Wolverhampton Wanderers chose not to submit an application to join the division. 'You are required to kind of live beyond your means in order to stay in the top two divisions,' Short added. 'We fear it is turning into a template of the men's game, where you lose money year after year.' Collins, meanwhile, had a blunt assessment of what would happen if Lewes failed to raise the money needed this summer. 'It's a business,' he said. 'If you can't pay your bills, you potentially face administration or insolvency.' He also warned they needed to 'stand on their own two feet', even if that meant being unable to 'compete against the Arsenals and Man Uniteds'. He added: 'We just want a club to go to on a weekend.'
RNZ News
11-06-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Council of Trade Unions take NZ's pay equity fight to international conference
Pay equity protestors voice their opinions outside Parliament on Budget day 2025. Photo: RNZ/Marika Khabazi A representative from the Council of Trade Unions has taken New Zealand's pay equity fight to an international conference. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) is a United Nations agency, which brings together workers, employers and governments to discuss work-related issues, and whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Council of Trade Unions secretary Melissa Ansell-Bridges is at its annual conference in Geneva, Switzerland. The coalition government announced in early May it would use urgency in Parliament to raise the threshold for proving work has been historically undervalued when making a pay equity claim. Workplace Minister Brooke van Velden said at the time , claims had been able to progress without strong evidence of undervaluation, and some had been "very broad", where it was difficult to tell whether differences in pay were due to sex-based discrimination or something else. The move cancelled 33 in-progress pay equity claims, and saved the government billions of dollars . Ansell-Bridges told RNZ she spoke about the changes during her speech to the ILO plenary on Tuesday. "It was important to inform the 187 member states that despite not being signalled in the last election, reforms to severely undermine the legislation were passed under urgency without any consultation with workers or their unions." The issue had come too late to make it onto the agenda for the ILO's committee on the application of standards, which sat during the two-week conference. "But that's definitely something that we'll be considering in advance of the conference next year," she said. If a case ended up being heard by the committee - which operated on a triage system - it would then be able to make recommendations to governments on how to stay in alignment with agreed conventions. Ansell-Bridges said the response from those international representatives who heard her speech had been one of warmth, support and surprise. "Obviously we have this reputation of being quite a progressive and forward-thinking country that values equality, and so to hear that these kinds of changes are happening in New Zealand, people are very surprised." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
