However the REC responded publically to the TUC’s complaint on payment between assignments contacts.
REC head of policy Kate Shoesmith said:
“It is wholly misleading of the TUC to describe pay between assignments (PBA) or Swedish Derogation contracts as a loophole as they are part of the Agency Workers Regulations (AWR) that were assembled following consultation with the unions. Most workers are now much better off as a result of AWR as they receive equal pay after 12 weeks. Or they can sign up to become a permanent employee of their recruitment agency where they are paid when not on assignments and have access to benefits that they would not have been eligible to before such as protection from unfair dismissal, maternity leave and statutory redundancy pay by signing a PBA contract. The UK economy has made a positive start on the long road to recovery and to disrupt this excellent progress by picking at regulations that the unions played a key role in constructing could put workers' jobs at risk.”
The TUC want government to make pay audits compulsory
7 November 2013
Today is ‘Equal Pay Day’ and according to a TUC analysis of official figures, women working full-time still earn almost £5,000 a year less than men and the pay gap in some jobs is as much as three times bigger. Equal Pay Day marks the point at which women working full-time effectively stop earning as they are paid 15 per cent less per hour than men working full-time. But in certain professions the gender pay gap is much wider, says the TUC. According to the research, female health professionals have the biggest pay gap at 31 per cent, which works out at £16,000 a year. A key reason for the size of the pay gap in health is the earnings of the best-paid professionals. Top male professionals in health earn nearly £50 an hour, twice as much as top earning women who earn £24.67 an hour. Women working in culture, media and sport experience the next biggest pay gap at 27.5 per cent – which works out at £10,000 a year – while women working in manufacturing occupations earn nearly 24 per cent less than men. Women earn less than men in 32 of the 35 major occupations classified by the Office for National Statistics. The three major occupations where women earn more than men – transport drivers, electricians and agricultural workers – are all male dominated. Fewer than 50,000 women are employed in these sectors, compared to 1.5 million men.
The gender pay gap across the private sector is 19.9 per cent, far higher than the 13.6 per cent pay gap in the public sector.
The gender pay gap is even bigger for women working part-time, who earn 35 per cent less per hour than men working full-time. Equal Pay Day for women working part-time was back on 27 August. The TUC believes that as four decades of equal pay legislation have only halved – rather than eradicated – the gender pay gap, a tougher approach is needed to stop millions of workers losing out on pay and career opportunities, simply because of their gender.
One of the reasons for the gender pay gap is the lack of transparency in pay systems that allow companies to pay female employees less than their male colleagues, without staff even
CIPP Policy News Journal
16/04/2014, Page 86 of 519
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