An article by Simon Goodley for The Guardian
Originally published on Tuesday 19 August 2014 at www.theguardian.com
Four decades after the Equal Pay Act, male company directors take home £21,000 a year more than female counterparts...
...Few cases over equal pay have ever been brought to court, although two years ago the Supreme Court did allow 174 mainly female former Birmingham city council workers to press ahead with compensation claims over missed bonuses – a judgement that has cost the council around £1bn to settle equal pay claims."
Helen Pitcher, chair of the human resources consultancy Advanced Boardroom Excellence, said it was unlikely many female bosses would want to take legal action.
"I am not surprised by the findings at all – and that is no criticism of the report at all," she said. "I wrote my thesis on women in management in the 1980s and very little has changed. The solution is all about transparency. Women often struggle with asking for a pay rise, whereas men don't. I don't think that most women would want to go as far [as taking legal action]. Very few women want to stick their heads above the parapet on this stuff."
