Group of 100 business women launch equal pay campaign

A group of more than 100 women high up in UK business and the government have launched a campaign, #MeTooPay, for equal pay in the workplace.

The campaign calls for “radical and rapid action,” and has set up a website that it hopes will become a hub for news, advice, and information about the issue.

Moya Greene, the former chief executive of Royal Mail, was prompted to launch the initiative following media coverage of sex discrimination and unequal pay at BNP Paribas.

She said she realised after FT coverage of an employment tribunal case won by a former BNP Paribas employee Stacey Macken “how pervasive this issue is across different sectors and across industries and how unequal pay affects women in theatre, film and finance, everywhere”.

Former TalkTalk CEO Dido Harding, one of the signatories to the campaign, said that the causes of unequal treatment were not always clear-cut: “99 out of 100 times you might be being underpaid not because your boss or company is consciously setting out to discriminate.”

“It’s so easy to say we should just legislate it, but actually it has been illegal for a long time

She pointed to unconscious bias, the greater tendency of men to ask for pay rises, and the lack of transparency about pay as common causes of salary disparities.

“It’s so easy to say we should just legislate it, but actually it has been illegal for a long time,” she noted.

Amanda Mackenzie, the chief executive of the Business in the Community campaign group and a signatory, said companies and managers should ensure “there is nothing on your payroll you’re not happy to defend”.

She recalled that, earlier in her career, HR had accidentally sent her a salary spreadsheet of people at her rank, and she found a six figure difference between her pay and that of her male colleagues.

“People don’t have to go lonely,” she said. “We need a moment of real honesty.”