TUC's ethnicity and gender pay gap 2020

Gender pay gap legislation introduced in April 2017 requires all employers of 250 or more employees to publish their gender pay gap for workers.

The TUC’s position is that:

all employers should publish information about their gender pay gap, to support the fair treatment and reward of all workers irrespective of gender
all employers should publish information about their ethnicity pay gap, as an important first step towards tackling the pay penalty experienced by Black and minority ethnic (BME) workers
all employers should put in place action plans to address pay gaps identified by their analysis.

This is the approach we follow at the TUC, although we have fewer than 250 employees.

TUC’s gender pay gap

Comparison of median pay at the TUC shows that there is a gap of 0% between men and women’s pay at April 2020. Comparison of mean pay shows that there is a negligible gap of 0.4% in favour of men. Over the last four years of reporting, there have been some small changes which are to be expected in a small organisation, where the impact of changes for individual staff can be reflected in our overall pay gap figures. And it’s helpful to keep a watchful eye on this data which could point to more significant underlying issues.

At the TUC, 47% of people in the lower pay quartile are women, as are 59% in our lower middle quartile. Women make up 57% of our upper middle quartile of pay, and 44% of our upper quartile. There have been small changes over the last four years with staff turnover.

TUC’s ethnicity pay gap

Comparison of median pay at the TUC shows that there is a gap of 12.9% between white and BME staff pay at April 2020. Comparison of mean pay shows a gap of 15.3% in favour of white staff.

At the TUC, 42% of people in the lower pay quartile are BME, as are 4% in our lower middle quartile. BME staff make up 20% of our upper middle quartile of pay, and 16% of our upper quartile.

The TUC’s pay system covers grades ranging from manual to managerial levels. Grades have been fully job evaluated in accordance with equal pay principles. All jobs are allocated to the relevant grade according to the level of responsibility and skills required in the role. Most grades have three pay points and staff are expected to move through these with service. The TUC does not pay bonus pay.

Factors tending to increase our ethnicity pay gap are that a relatively high proportion of the lowest quartile of our staff are BME, and that we need to keep doing more to increase the number of BME staff in senior roles. We directly employ staff in our cleaning, catering and support roles. These jobs are in the bottom quartile of our pay bands. Reflecting the occupational segregation experienced by BME workers across the labour market, these roles are more likely to be filled by BME staff. We are a Living Wage employer and more of our BME staff work in roles which attract London weighting.

What we are doing to eradicate our pay gaps and ensure fairness for all our staff

TUC is committed to fair pay regardless of gender and race and has taken action to work towards eliminating any pay gaps:

We have simple pay structures to help us avoid bias creeping in. For example, our pay scales are short, and we don’t pay bonuses or performance-related pay. We have undergone an equal pay audit which enabled us to identify and reduce other causes of gender pay inequality.
We have a narrower gap between our top and bottom earners than many employers.
We recognise staff trade unions and negotiate our pay and conditions with them.
Women and men work at all levels of the organisation. Our most senior staff member is a woman - Frances O’Grady, our general secretary - and there are other women in our senior management team. Posts on lower grades are fairly evenly divided between women and men.
We support women having children with generous maternity leave and flexible working policies. We also provide financial support for childcare. We encourage men to play a full part in parenting by offering generous paternity leave and shared parental leave. We support BME and female employees’ career progression through training and development opportunities.
We have taken steps to prevent bias in recruitment wherever we can – for example, by anonymising applicants’ personal details during shortlisting and aiming to ensure ensuring every recruitment panel includes at least one woman and one BME panel member.

In 2018, we recognised we needed to do more to make our staff profile reflect the predominantly London base of the TUC, particularly at senior grades. We set an aspiration to fill 50% of recruited posts at more senior and regional levels with BME staff. As part of this work, we revised and improved our recruitment processes to support, encourage and inform BME applicants. We have also provided more internal development opportunities, many of which were taken up by existing BME staff. In the year to end of June 2020, 27% of our more senior and regional recruited posts were filled by BME staff.

Our more detailed analysis has considered the details of the situation between full-time and part-time staff and examined the intersection between gender and race.

The TUC will continue to monitor our pay gaps and make further improvements to ensure we are treating all our staff fairly and reflecting the diversity of trade union members.

I, Frances O’Grady, General Secretary, confirm that our calculations are accurate and that our gender pay gap has been calculated in accordance with ACAS guidance.

Frances O'Grady