October 30th is Women’s No Pay Day – the day that women effectively stop being paid relative to men thanks to the pay gap between the sexes.
Women working full time are paid, on average, 17% less per hour - around £4000 a year - less than men; equivalent to men being paid all year and women working for free from 30th October.
Women’s No Pay Day sees events across the country, organised by the Fawcett Society and Unison members, to highlight the problem of the gender pay gap.
Jean Lambert, MEP for London, is backing the campaign. She said:
"Thanks to the Fawcett Society and Unison, we are starting to look seriously at the inequality still faced by women workers in Britain today.
“At 17%, we have one of the biggest and most stubborn gender pay gaps in Europe. The government needs to take a great deal of responsibility for this, but the Equalities Bill offers an opportunity to start to tackle the problem if it includes measures such as mandatory pay audits and better support for women wanting to challenge pay levels in their workplaces.
“However, much more can be done, particularly in tackling the low pay faced by all workers in sectors which are dominated by women. Low pay for certain jobs contributes to the fact that women in Britain are 14% more likely to be in poverty than men and this continues into old age as women receive lower pensions.
“Greens everywhere are campaigning for a living wage for all workers. In London, and local councils such as Norwich and Oxford, we have been successful in ensuring all public sector workers and contractors are paid such a salary. These efforts will help close the gender pay gap and bring many thousands of women and families out of poverty as well.”
Notes to Editors
Last year, supporters of the Women’s No Pay Day campaign held 12 events in 9 cities across the UK to raise awareness of the pay gap and 3,300 people signed a petition to Gordon Brown.
This year, events are taking place across the country on 30 October, in universities, including Newcastle, Sheffield, Staffordshire, Lancaster, Warwick, Cambridge and Birmingham. And in shopping centres and railway stations in London, Birmingham, Exeter, Plymouth, Barnstaple and Bournemouth, where leaflets resembling payslips for £0 will be handed out.