Despite campaigning for equal pay for years, some unions have the worst pay gaps in the UK with women paid a median hourly rate up to 42.7% less than men in some cases.
Many UK unions have come under fire after it emerged they pay women less than men. The unions have been accused of double standards after a gender pay gap analysis revealed they had some of the worst pay disparities in the country, despite campaigning for equal pay themselves.
Teachers’ union NASUWT was found to be the worst performing, with the median hourly rate for women (the level of pay for a middle-ranking female worker) being 42.7% lower than that of male workers. When you break that down it means for every £1 men earn, women earn just 57p.
At Usdaw – the shopworkers’ union – the median hourly rate for women was found to be 33.5% lower than for men, and at GMB it was 32.4% less.
At Unite the gender pay gap was 29.6%.
The analysis only included unions with more than 250 employees, so a lot of other well-known unions are not included in the list.
The only organisation with a positive record was the Trades Union Congress, the federation of British unions. It has a 0% median pay gap while its mean pay gap, taking the average of every employee’s pay, was 2.2%.
Medical unions such as the Royal College of Nursing and the British Medical Association had the lowest gender pay gaps.
Commenting on the analysis former Cabinet minister Priti Patel attacked the unions, saying:
Once again the hypocrisy and double standards of the unions has been exposed. They should end the blatant and unjustifiable pay discrimination they have shown to the thousands of women they employ – and pay their women fairly.
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