Marvin OnumonuMinisters have been urged to expand pay gap reporting to include ethnicity and disability, create a new enforcement unit for equal pay, and offer protection for whistleblowers who expose breaches in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
This comes as a recent report from The Guardian found upcoming Equality Bill is set to overhaul UK workplace equality law.
Nick Henderson-Mayo (pictured), head of compliance at VinciWorks, said: “Large UK organisations have been reporting the gender pay gap for years.
“It’s helped to highlight inequalities and bring more money into women’s pockets — people who have been systematically underpaid for generations.
“Extending pay gap reporting to ethnicity and disability could bring the same clarity and more money into people’s pay packets.”
Henderson-Mayo added: “Pay gap reporting uncovers inequalities that are often unconscious, but no less damaging, across large workforces.
“Why does the average disabled person take home less? Why might someone from one ethnicity be paid more than one from another?
“The causes aren’t always malicious, but they’re real, and reporting forces organisations to explain them.”
He said: “But, crucially, if there is some unfair or unlawful reason women are being paid less than men for the same job, pay gap reporting can highlight such things and bring redress.
“In many ways, the UK is years behind the US when it comes to highlighting pay transparency.
“Decades of civil rights laws in the US, the relative ease of class action lawsuits and the strength of American labour unions in certain sectors have given a lot of teeth to spotting gender or race-based pay disparities.
“Not to mention the dozens of state-based laws, the stronger discovery rights in US litigation, and the greater frequency of US courts to award punitive damages.”
Henderson-Mayo said the way the UK economy operates, along with the options available for workers to challenge unfair pay, is generally weaker and less supportive of workers compared to other countries.
He notes that this makes pay gap legislation both necessary and useful, as it can help show where pay inequalities exist and provide workers with the evidence they need to take action.
He added that, right now, diversity, equity and inclusion teams in companies are being asked to prove their worth.
Henderson-Mayo said focusing on pay gap transparency could be a practical way to do this.
He noted that ‘DEI’ has often faced criticism because it can sometimes concentrate on issues like microaggressions or pronouns rather than pay and promotions.
Additionally, he pointed out that ‘DEI’ initiatives usually come from senior management rather than from workers themselves, but what workers really want is fairer pay.
He said: “Pay gaps, whether based on ethnicity, sex or disability, take money out of workers’ pockets for illegal reasons.
“Workers need tools to challenge this kind of discrimination, and UK workers have, for many years, been at a disadvantage from their US colleagues when it comes to fighting unlawful pay discrimination.
“The UK’s consultation on pay gap legislation should be a watershed moment.”
He added: “This can put power back in the hands of workers to challenge unlawful discrimination with evidence, not just anecdotes.”
