Recently I went to a late afternoon event in the House of Commons then afterwards had a drink (or three) with a colleague in a nearby pub.
The pub and road outside became full with drinkers enjoying the end of the workday and the glorious sunshine.
Personal Protective Equipment: the right fit for women?
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is there to protect workers from potential hazards to their health and safety; it must be used properly. However, the experiences of hundreds of women tells us…Read more…
Pregnancy discrimination: Government action is long overdue and misses the point
Today the government published its long overdue response to the Women and Equalities Select Committee report on pregnancy and maternity discrimination. Given that the EHRC estimate that some 54,000 women are forced out of their jobs per year due to pre…Read more…
Women are being held back by unrewarding, low-paid, part-time work
Despite some progress, women still take the lion’s share of domestic and family responsibilities. Over 40% of women, compared to just 12% of men, work part-time. This is part of the reason that progress on closing the gender pay gap has been so painfully slow. There are far too few opportunities to…Read more…
Public sector cuts are stalling progress on closing the gender pay gap
Now at 9.4%, the gender pay gap has barely budged in recent years. Since 2011 the full-time gap has fallen by just 0.2 percentage points a year. At this rate it will take over 40 years to achieve pay parity between men and women. This means a young wom…Read more…
From gender reassignment to trade union activist – my story
Unions: not them; us. “Think not what your union can do for you but what you can do for your union.” Actually when I went through gender reassignment, my thoughts were very much with what my union…Read more…
Europe’s gender employment rate gaps: why the UK should be worried
In this post I take a broader approach to an issue I looked at in my blog on Wednesday: employment rate gaps. One aspect of women’s economic dependency has been less involvement in the labour market, so the employment rate gap is a handy indicator. To work it out, you simply subtract women’s…Read more…
Self-employment – who are the new army of workers?
The rise in self – employment is well documented, the surge is extraordinary as self-employment is a relatively small part of the UK jobs market. More striking is that whilst women account for just under a third of all the self- employed, they have made up over half (53 per cent) of the increase…Read more…
Women in work: has the progress come to an end?
Welcome to the first in a series of five blogposts on gender and the labour market. I’m going to kick us off by putting today’s labour market statistics in their historical context. Then I’ll worry a bit about whether progress on employment gaps between men and women is coming to an end….Read more…
Workers in Japan let down by Abe’s new spending plans
Last month Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe set jaws dropping by announcing a 28.1 trillion yen (£208.1 billion) stimulus package. The package is designed to jump start Japan’s economy that has been struggling with slow growth and see off the threat of deflation. The important feature of the…Read more…
Making the case for compulsory sex and relationships education
Today sees the launch of a new campaign for Sex and Relationships Education (SRE), set up by the End Violence Against Women coalition and the Everyday Sexism project, and supported by the TUC. The SREnow campaign calls for SRE to be made compulsory in …Read more…
390,000 women a year are discriminated against in pregnancy yet only 1% take tribunal claim
Today the EHRC published its long awaited report and recommendations on pregnancy discrimination. This follows on from last year’s interim report which found that 54,000 women per year are forced out of their jobs due to pregnancy discrimination. The final report leads with the astounding headline…Read more…
Select committee holds government to account over gender pay gap
Just last week, the Chancellor proudly announced in the Budget that the government was winning on the gender pay gap. He said (pretty much cutting and pasting from previous speeches): “Inequality is down; and the gender pay gap has never been smaller.” But today we are told by the Women and…Read more…
“Unison has done so much for working women”
UNISON’s President Wendy Nichols has responded below to a bizarre (and “untrue”) attack on the union in the Guardian last week.
When I think of all the very strong and influential women in UNISON the idea that they are being “side lined” is fran…Read more…
Fiona Bruce’s abortion amendment: an attack on women’s rights
This evening Parliament will debate an amendment to the Serious Crime Bill which represents a significant and retrograde step in UK legislation on abortion. The amendment concerns abortions on the grounds of foetal sex – a practice which is commonplace in many countries but for which there is no…Read more…