Wimbledon bows to women's call for pay equality
Friday, 23 February 2007
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Former Wimbledon champions queued up yesterday to pay tribute to the decision to offer equal prize money to both male and female winners of the Grand Slam tournament.
Amélie Mauresmo, whose £625,000 prize cheque was £30,000 less than Roger Federer's last year, declared it a "victory for women in general". Maria Sharapova, who lifted the silver salver in 2004, said she was "thrilled". Three-times champion Venus Williams said the event would now be "even greater".
But for the millions of women forced to earn their living in the world outside the All England Tennis and Croquet Club, equality of pay is still a distant dream.
According to the Office for National Statistics, the mean hourly gender pay gap for full-time work actually increased last year after slowly narrowing since 1997. Men in Britain are now earning 17.2 per cent more than women. For those working part-time, the figure is nearly 40 per cent.
In SW19 and the rest of London the gap is even larger. A report by the Greater London Authority published earlier this month found the capital was way above the mean average for the rest of the UK - with women taking home 23 per cent less than men.
While women were more likely to be at the bottom end of the pay scale, the differences were even more pronounced among the highest salary earners.
Among the top 10 per cent the income gap between men and women was 32 per cent in London, the GLA found.
Kate Bellamy, of the Fawcett Society, said that while the Prime Minister had been happy to weigh into the row over Wimbledon prize money, his Government had stalled in its attempts to narrow the pay gap in society in general. "Wimbledon has served up an ace but it's time employers and Government also raised their game and delivered full pay to women," she said.
The All England Club announcement came on the day that socialist MEPs gathered outside the European Parliament in Brussels to highlight the issue of gender pay inequality.
Declaring 22 February Equal Pay Day - because women would have to work the 14 months up until now, to earn what men earned in 2006 - they said that despite the goal of equal pay being enshrined in the Treaty of Rome 50 years ago, there remained a 15 per cent gap across Europe.
Britain has been ranked 12th out of 15 European countries for its full-time pay gap, while women's hourly part-time pay was just 42 per cent of the full-time average in the UK compared to 76 per cent in other developed countries.
According to the Equal Opportunities Commission complex factors contribute to Britain's poor performance in levelling the playing field between genders.
Despite being outlawed more than 30 years ago, sexual discrimination, though significantly reduced by the Equal Pay and Sexual Discrimination Acts, continues. And while there have been hundreds of thousands of equal pay cases brought before tribunals, the average pay-out in successful cases in 2005 was £7,567.
Women also continue to get caught in the so-called "mummy trap" - forced to take part-time or poorly paid jobs after having children. They are also disproportionately represented in the worst-paid occupations, with men dominating the higher echelons of the most lucrative professions such as law. And as income levels continue to rise, women are finding the gap growing.
Campaigners are demanding a number of measures to consign the pay gap to the past. The Fawcett Society, which has been fighting for the cause since 1866, wants compulsory pay audits, more flexible working and better childcare.
The Government, which has presided over a 3.6 per cent narrowing of the full-time gender pay gap since it came to power in 1997, will in April see its Gender Equality Duty come into force. Billed as the biggest change in 30 years, it will require all publicly-funded employers to take the lead in reducing the gap.
Marilyn Walker, 64: 'I was never paid what I was worth'
It was only after she retired that Marilyn Walker, a school dinner lady with 26 years' service, found out she had been receiving less money than her male colleagues.
"I was very angry when I realised that the council had never paid me what I was worth," said the 64-year-old from Stockport, Greater Manchester.
Mrs Walker, who worked at Bruntwood Primary School in Stockport until 2005, had never received a bonus for her services from the council.
However, workers in low-skilled male-dominated jobs such as refuse workers, joiners and road sweepers, regularly received bonuses throughout this period. Incentives were offered for good productivity and working antisocial hours, and could add 50 per cent to an income.
Mrs Walker is pressing her claim for compensation with the solicitors Leigh, Day and Co, preparing to take legal action against the local council on the grounds of sexual discrimination and unequal pay.
She is furious that she, like many female council workers across the country, was underpaid for so long. "Even now they are refusing to pay up - it's so unfair. The council kept all this quiet for a long time - they never told us there was a problem," she said.
Mrs Walker's husband, Terence, 68, was hoping for a quieter retirement. He said: "After giving up so much of her life, my wife now has to spend her retirement chasing up the council. It's a hard pill to swallow."
Ben Phillips
