02 Informed


Michelle’s Message


Our reps have always been our strength


that our public service broadcaster was not treating its own staff fairly – and where the publication of the high-earners list back in July 2017 demonstrated pay inequity on a massive scale – has motivated many members to organise and champion change in their workplaces. With a significant volume of equal


Talking to NUJ members in a workplace canteen recently, I was told – not for the first time – how an FoC, in trying to persuade others to get involved on the committee, was promising that the NUJ’s brilliant reps’ training programme was reason enough to get more active. He’s not wrong there. The range of


reps’ courses we put on consistently gets excellent feedback – thanks largely, of course, to our wonderful trainer Caroline Holmes – but also in no small part because the reps we bring together have a huge amount to share and learn from each other. We’re constantly looking at ways we


can get more members engaged in the work of the union and what training would be helpful for them to gain the confidence to get active in the workplace. One area we’ll be developing is


addressing gender and diversity issues in the workplace. The NUJ has put in a huge amount of effort over the past 18 months, tackling the gender pay gap, shining a light on equal pay cases and putting the issue of pay parity squarely on the industrial agenda. We’ve had a lot of successes in the


process but it’s clear there is so much more to be done; and our reps are central to that work and our ability to hold employers to account. Not least at the BBC, where anger and outrage prompted by the knowledge


pay cases for NUJ members still in train – at various stages of the grievance, appeal and even tribunal processes – frustrations still run deep and the BBC has yet to convince many of its staff that it has got a grip on this problem. It’s dogged, detailed work. The NUJ has great support from our equality and legal officer Natasha Morris, our lawyer and equal pay specialist Caroline Underhill at Thompsons and, most of all, our BBC reps and secondees on the ground who are putting in the graft and pushing for the outcomes our members deserve. It’s vital that chapels across all sectors and workplaces should put gender pay gaps and equal pay at the top of their agendas. It shouldn’t be something that’s done by a company-established equality group, which in many cases are set up to take the heat out of the fury that ensues when staff digest just how big their gender pay gap is. The chapel must be directly involved and use it as a recruitment opportunity. In meetings with the Equality and Human Rights Commission over our work at the BBC, it was interesting to hear that the imposition of the gender pay gap reporting regulations have proven a game-changer in ways they never anticipated. For starters – the focus it’s led to on equal pay. They’re obviously different issues – a wide gender pay gap doesn’t necessarily mean there’ll be an equal pay problem, but


it’s a trigger for conversations amongst colleagues and draws back the curtains on an issue that is all too often shrouded in secrecy – what our salary is. We need to encourage members to share data and information on salaries and terms and conditions. Greater transparency is key. It’s only


ever in a company’s interests for pay to be a private deal. Breaking down data into detailed quartiles of men and


“It’s vital that chapels and workplaces put gender pay gaps and equal pay at the top of their agendas”


women, and BAME data, is a great way of getting under the bonnet and seeing what horrors lurk. It’s also a source of great discomfort for many employers, which is to be exploited. The gender pay gap regulations are


flawed – no compulsion on a company to publish an action plan, or real consequences if they don’t comply. With our collective campaigning and pushing, that will change in time. Our experience is some companies are engaging with the NUJ on these issues – they can see the benefits – for them – of being seen to take this issue seriously. It’s not a genie that will be shoved back into a bottle. That provides real opportunities to tackle the actual problems that make gender pay a reality – the layered ways in which women are discriminated against in the workplace. No pay scales. The lack of transparency. Opaque, unfair recruitment processes that lead to managers hiring in their own image. The resistance to flexible working and


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