Bin strike payoff as women now earn more than men at Brighton and Hove City Council
An equal pay policy which sparked Brighton and Hove’s infamous long-running bin strikes appears to have worked with the news that women are now paid more than men at the city council.
Rubbish piles up at the Hanover Centre recycling centre in September 2014 following a binmen strike
In 2013, the council moved to standardise allowances and expenses in the wake of a 2010 court victory by cleaners, admin workers, dinner ladies and lollipop ladies who worked for Birmingham City Council who earned as much as a quarter of men on the same pay grade.
But when Brighton and Hove City Council took action to ensure they were not open to similar action, it sparked the most infamous bin strike Brighton has seen – and critics of the then Green administration had a field day.
Today, on International Women’s Day, the city council has announced that women are now earning on average 6% more than men – although it says this is largely down to the fact more women are in senior roles or in positions which are paid “market supplements” – i.e. salaries need to be higher in order to attract any applicants. OF the latter, most are social workers in children’s services.
Cllr Emma Daniel, chair of the neighbourhoods, inclusion, communities and equality committee said: “The gender pay gap report shows that our council is committed to inclusion for our female workers, and we’re showing other council’s the way forward.
“I’m pleased that our approach to fair pay and grading, family friendly employment policies and a commitment to diversity in the workplace has enabled women to develop careers with the council.
“We’re not going to let that take our eye off the ball, and we’re committed to ensuring the council is a fair and inclusive place to work for everyone regardless of gender.
“We’ll be looking at this data and considering what further actions should be taken.
“In the age of the #MeToo campaign there has never been a more important time to keep motivated and #PressforProgress on International Women’s Day.”
The gender pay gap is defined as the average pay gap between male and female staff in hourly pay. All employers with more than 250 employees must now publish their gender pay gap report annually.
International Women’s Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity and is urging communities everywhere to #PressForProgress.
A report on the council’s gender pay gap can be found here.
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So that is Equality as women see it. Earning more than men. So it’s OK to have a gender pay gap as long as it favours the girls eh? Ha! Typical Feminazi have your cake and eat it “Doublethink” ideology. I urge all men to go on strike all over the world for “International Mens Day” (as women have urged in Spain) and see the world grind to a halt. All the dirty, dangerous jobs are done by men. The jobs that the Feminists don’t include in their equal opportunities “struggle” as they simply don’t want to do them yet want to be paid more for safe, clean white collar jobs. If men stopped doing their work the gas will not flow, the water will not run and the roads will remain holed, the produce will rot in the lorries and the dead will remain unburied. Feminism, know your name and that is hypocrisy.
Interesting if we swap the word ‘men’ in your comments above with the word ‘immigrants’.
Now, let’s see what happens if we rewrite the while thing using the word ‘people’…
So that is Equality as people see it. Earning more than people. So it’s OK to have a people pay gap as long as it favours the people eh? Ha! Typical Peoplenazi have your cake and eat it “Doublethink” ideology. I urge all people to go on strike all over the world for “International People’s Day” (as people have urged in Spain) and see the world grind to a halt. All the dirty, dangerous jobs are done by people. The jobs that the Peopleists don’t include in their equal opportunities “struggle” as they simply don’t want to do them yet want to be paid more for safe, clean white collar jobs. If people stopped doing their work the gas will not flow, the water will not run and the roads will remain holed, the produce will rot in the lorries and the dead will remain unburied. Peopleism, know your name and that is hypocrisy.
All sounds a bit silly, but you wait till dem pesky AI robots start coming for our people jobs! x
Did you read the article? Unfortunately the headline left out the most important piece of information – that this is die to more women being in senior roles not because they just felt like it. Read the article properly before jumping to conclusions.
And you think the over representation of women is based on merit?
This seems improbable — especially as the council say they are actively working to benefit women over men.
So Brighton Council have actively and deliberately given jobs to second rate candidates… this would explain a lot about the councils performance. But worse, it is now impossible to know if any particular woman employed by the council is there on merit…
but that’s what we said about men earning more!! because they had different jobs. now you’re using the same argument you rejected before. stunning hypocrisy and shows all this equality stuff is just people out for themselves
There is a clue in the name “Equal Opportunity “, Male and Female workers should be paid the same , now the Female Council workers are getting 6% more then Male workers, what do you think will happen next !!!.
Let me spell it out for you, the Male Council workers will go on strike, then we we are back to square one. Whatever role you are in, whether it is a road sweeper, bin collector, dustcart driver, or manager, if you are in a similar role you should be payed equally. I wish the Brighton and Hove City Council would all start to to pull there fingers out there backsides, and start providing the services that all residents are are paying for in there Council Tax, which can I remind you all will go up again in April by 5.99 % 😠😤
Irony and hypocrisy here… Cllr Emma Daniel was first elected in large part because of the bin strike, that emerged from the need to sort out equal pay and allowances, the resolution of which Labour did not support at that Policy and Resources meeting back in 2013…
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