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From The Socialist newspaper, 10 April 2019
Gender pay gap widening: trade union struggle needed to win decent pay for all
Glasgow women on strike for equal pay, photo Public Services International/CC (Click to enlarge)
Karen Seymour, Mansfield Socialist Party
From 6 April, companies with more than 250 employees are required to disclose their gender pay gap.
The BBC reports that among the large firms with the biggest increases in pay gaps were garage chain Kwik Fit, car retailer Inchcape, and Interserve FS, part of Interserve Group, which leaches off the public sector.
Some companies have failed to respond to the government's request for this data. It is a sign of how seriously, or not, the Tories take the issue that there is no definitive list of companies required to file figures!
Every sector pays men more on average, from construction to manufacturing.
It isn't just businesses that are failing to do anything about gender pay. The Guardian reports that in some civil service departments, the problem is getting worse!
Paying women less than men for the same work has been against the law since the 1970 Equal Pay Act.
Of course, the biggest pay gap is between bosses and workers. FTSE 100 chiefs earn 133 times more than the average UK worker.
And the gap is increasing. Iain Conn, chief executive of Centrica that owns British Gas, just got a 44% pay rise to £2.4 million.
What the Socialist Party demands is that trade unions take a lead in fighting for public investment in well-paid jobs for all, with trade union rights for every worker.
Public sector union Unison led a 48-hour strike of 8,000 women council workers in Glasgow that won £500 million, which had been stolen in unequal pay deals. 600 mainly male refuse workers took unofficial strike action in support of them.
The soaring cost of childcare also disproportionately affects women. It's a scandal that some families pay out more in childcare costs than they do in mortgage repayments!
Many childcare providers have struggled to provide promised free childcare due to insufficient government subsidy. Some providers have gone out of business.
The Socialist Party calls for high-quality, publicly funded, free or affordable childcare for all.
We say open the books of big business, to find out where the wealth created by workers is really going! Public ownership, under democratic workers' control and management, is the strongest foundation for tackling gender pay and all other workplace issues.
We need to replace failed capitalism with a democratic socialist plan to provide for all. Only then can equality be assured.
- 'It doesn't have to be like this: Women and the struggle for socialism' just £6 plus postage at leftbooks.co.uk
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In The Socialist 10 April 2019:
What we think
Corbyn must demand general election, defend workers' interests and fight for a socialist Brexit
Climate change
Organise against climate change, austerity and capitalism
Only socialism can stop capitalism's plastic problem
International socialist news and analysis
Algeria: Bouteflika is finished but the Algerian revolution is not!
China: police state in Xinjiang under global spotlight
Local elections
Local government in crisis: councillors can fight cuts!
Socialist Party news and analysis
Boot out the Tories - end austerity
Workplace news and analysis
PCS: vote Yes for action, back socialists in the elections!
NEU conference: organise for the key battles to come
Swindon workers discuss action to save Honda jobs
Southampton Hospital security workers strike
Support the Glasgow Airport pay and pensions strike
London Overground cleaners strike for better pay
Socialist Party reports and campaigns
Leicester Socialist Party letter for no-cuts budget
Walthamstow: end the school funding crisis
Reject the rotten NUS 'reforms'
Leicester NHS Trust and the brutal reality of cuts
Social cleansing continues in Southwark
South Yorkshire Freedom Riders - still battling on
Gateshead FC crisis: save our Heed!
Health Campaigns Together AGM success
Opinion
Low pay, long hours, isolation - a taxi driver speaks out
'Traitors': Cold War cloak and daggers as capitalist powers spy on allies
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