The cost of living crisis has stalled efforts to achieve gender equality in the workplace, says general secretary of trade union umbrella body Wales TUC. Shavanah Taj, who joined Wales TUC in February 2019 from the Public and Commercial Services Union, believes women still have a “long way to go” before achieving equity in pay and in terms and conditions of employment.
“There is a lot of talk about ethics, improvements and standard setting but now with a cost of living crisis, it feels like we have gone backwards. The attitude has become whatever you can get, you can get,” she said. And on International Women’s Day, women still aren’t getting a fair deal in the workplace.
Last month, the TUC published data which revealed that the gender pay gap now stood at 15%, meaning that women work 54 days a year - nearly two months - for free. In Wales, it is around 45 days.
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Even in sectors that are dominated by a female workforce, such as education, health and social care, women get paid much less per hour on average than men, both because they are more likely to be in part-time jobs or less senior roles.
The gender pay gap persists despite the UK Government requiring all companies that employ 250 people or more to publish their pay gap statistics since 2017.
“We need to see what companies are doing to close that gap,” said the general secretary. “There needs to be monitoring, evaluation and a level of enforcement by organisations like the Equality and Human Rights Commission. We need clearer targets and there needs to be fines put in place for those who don’t comply.”
The gender pay disparity widens for older women and women who become mothers, as they take a financial hit for balancing work alongside caring for children, grandchildren and older relatives. Many blame the lack of affordable childcare in the UK, which is among the most expensive in the world, for forcing mothers to leave employment which in turn exacerbates the labour shortage in the UK.
A recent report from the Centre for Progressive Policy (CPP) revealed that the UK is losing out on economic growth worth up to £38bn every year because of unsuitable childcare - the equivalent of 1% of GDP.
Ahead of the budget on March 15, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is under pressure to reform childcare and inject cash into the childcare sector to close the “maternal employment gap”. Although it is understood he has rejected an option of extending 30 hours of free childcare to one- and two-year-olds in England on cost grounds.
In Wales, parents of 3-to-4 year olds can claim up to 30 hours of early education and childcare for a week, for up to 48 weeks of the year. There is also 12.5 hours of free childcare a week for children aged 2 years old under the Flying Start Scheme. However, Ms Taj believes these measures do not go far enough to support parents to return to work.
“In Norway, childcare is so much cheaper and there is greater flexibility in the workplace. People have a shorter working day for example so they can get home and pick up their children from school. It is completely normal in parts of Europe for recognised trade unions to have collective bargaining to work in tripartite social partnership, where you can address all of these issues.”
“If we want to see more women in the workplace and more women to be able to progress in the workplace, then we need to create the right conditions to allow for that. If more employers were prepared to offer greater flexibility that would make a huge difference.”
Would a four day working week, that is currently being trialled by companies across the UK, be the solution? “It is not necessarily going to give the level of flexibility for somebody who's got caring responsibilities or young children and needs flexibility in a different way. We still have a very gendered workforce and gendered sectors of workforces. There are more women in social care for example,” she said.
“Does a four day working week actually deliver for the employer on that basis? And does it work for that individual? Possibly not. So we have to be a bit more nuanced, I think, in the way that we approach things.”
In addition to financial challenges, women are still facing discrimination in 2023. The recent serious incidents at the Met Police and claims of a “toxic culture” of sexism at the Welsh Rugby Union have brought sexual harassment in the workplace back into the spotlight.
However, the general secretary said trade unions can play a role in tackling endemic sexism in an organisation. “Trade unions don’t just negotiate on pay on a collective basis, they are also there to work with the employer, HR team and managers on the development of policy and to get to grips with how that policy and practice can be delivered in a way that is workable.
“The TUC has developed a number of toolkits for employers including a sexual harassment in the workplace toolkit. If we are going to have a better, more inclusive workplace then we need to be confident enough to know that there are structures and systems in place that are supportive and are not going to discriminate or work against the individual in some way.”
Wales TUC membership
TUC Wales, a co-ordinating body of trade unions in Wales, has seen its membership increase by 20,000 in recent years and now represents 400,000 workers across 48 different affiliated trade unions. Around 65% of the 400,000 workers are in the public sector.
A lot of these new members have included taxi drivers, hairdressers and freelancers working in creative industries, said Ms Taj. “That increase has a lot to do with the pandemic. We saw more people join a trade union during the pandemic period, and quite often people who were self employed and not covered by collective bargaining in a formal recognition agreement.”
“I think people have become much more aware of the power and need to be a part of a collective so that you're not in it alone, because it is really hard to stick your head above the parapet in a workplace when something is happening to you but the structure isn’t there to support you.”
In the last few months, even UK workers at global companies Amazon and Apple have unionised for the first time and won trade union recognition.
“More people have become aware of what exploitation looks like and what a bad boss looks like and they know that it doesn’t have to be that way,” said the general secretary. “But bad bosses can become better bosses. I’ve been involved in so many different disputes over the years that have involved strike action before we’ve managed to develop a healthy, good relationship.”
The relationship between a trade union and business is anything but hostile. Ms Taj said: “Ian Price (director of CBI Wales) and I laugh about this all the time when we often end up on a panel together. Sometimes we agree on things and sometimes we disagree, but it’s never to the point of no return.
“That’s the beauty of democracy, right? You can have your red lines, but mostly the idea when a union is involved is to get a good deal and sometimes that’s about having a good compromise that people can live with.
“Sometimes it’s about the power dynamics and understanding that it’s not about who wins but about making sure that the worker gets a good deal and that people feel valued for the work they are doing.”
But does every sector need a trade union? Does an employee working for a software firm, who is well paid, has flexible working hours and an annual bonus, need to be in a trade union?
The general secretary said: "Yes. Because you never know when you might be at risk of losing your job. You may not even know that you are entitled to formal notice or, if there is an organisational review, that it is the employer's responsibility to let workers know what that review looks like. But if there's a union there and you're a member of the union we can get that information. We can support an individual and represent the entire workforce.”
“It’s about having that added protection, like insurance, in case something does happen. At a time like this, there has never been a greater need to join a union. Even executives and directors of organisations are members of a union.”
However, it’s almost been a year now since the beginning of industrial disputes across various sectors over pay and conditions. But with all sectors demanding pay increases from the UK and devolved governments, who only have a finite amount of money, can everyone get what they want?
“We’ve seen bonuses going up at a crazy level. In the banking industry, for example, some of the top CEO salaries themselves, let alone their bonuses have been insane. If some of that money was put back in and we had a higher windfall tax for those companies, then our figures tell us consistently that public sector workers could get an inflation-proof pay rise,” said Ms Taj, adding that the disputes are also about better work conditions particularly for staff in the NHS.
“When we've got public sector workers, especially in the NHS, sleeping in their cars in between shifts and working extremely long hours. We are seeing a real impact on people's mental health and wellbeing. If we don't address pay, we're not going to be able to address good service delivery. They both go hand in hand. And that's what we're hearing from workers on a regular basis.”
On the anti-strike laws proposed by the UK Government, which would mandate minimum service levels for critical industries even on strike days, Ms Taj said they were an attack on freedom and democracy to act when something is wrong.
“When people take strike action it genuinely is the last resort and purely a means to get a better deal at the negotiating table. It’s nothing more than that. Nobody likes losing a day’s pay, it’s a really hard thing to do. So when people are pushed to the brink to strike it shows the strength of feeling.
“We’ve also got one of the toughest legislations in place to get union recognition, as far as the trade union movement is concerned in the UK. You have to prove that a certain number of people are members of a union and want to have a trade union. We already need to give formal notice of at least two weeks and the ballot thresholds to strike have gone up even higher.
“All it tells us is that they want to shut down the one vehicle that remains in favour of workers and that is the voice of the unions. They don’t want that sort of organisation to exist, because ultimately, when you have a union there is more opportunity to have a balance of power.”
“But you can also have innovation, unions and employers can work together and find ways and means of doing things differently. It's not all about banging on the table and being outside on a picket line. There's a lot of really good stuff that happens behind closed doors or inside the workplace that maybe the outside world doesn't always see.”
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