Know your rights

Know your rights, Advocate for yourself and Don't turn the blind eye to gender discrimination were some of the tips that Employment Lawyer and fellow National Association of Women In Construction (NAWIC) London & South East member Alex Harper shared at her brilliant talk last week.

Hosted by committee member Chloe Xidhas at her office BW: Workplace Experts , the event was extremely popular.

These are my notes and are nowhere near as comprehensive as Alex's presentation was. However, I feel it is important to share for the benefit of everyone In my network:

We started with an update on the results from the Gender Pay gap reporting that has recently being published:

• This year the reported Pay Gap was 9.1% which is the lowest it has ever been since records began
• Unfortunately, in traditionally male industries such as construction, the gap is actually 22.8 % because representation in leadership remains lacking while representation in part time and administrative roles remain in the hands of women

Furthermore, although there is evidence to suggest that when looking at intersectionality , women who have additional protected characteristics, are subject to a wider pay gap and a pay penalty, reporting on the ethnicity pay gap is not mandatory, and hence progress in this space remains unknown .

When it came to discussing Equal pay, we heard about some interesting case studies that have been shaping the meaning of "Equal pay for similar (equal) work" in the past couple of years. Examples included Birmingham city council's carers /bin collectors and the Co-Op supermarket's floor workers/ warehouse staff (details can be found online)

We also heard of public sector initiatives to create bands that determine the type of roles that are considered of equal value in order to prevent future claims.

The audience wanted to know how to approach the subject if one suspects they are being underpaid.

• We were told that regardless of whether you are told you cannot discuss your salary in your contract, in the UK, you are allowed to ask your employer questions for the purpose of reviewing whether you are paid equally.
• And if there are discrepancies, your employer needs to objectively justify those. They cannot simply use woolie arguments such as "market forces" "years working at the office" etc..

Sex discrimination is an area of discussion that our industry struggles to fully understand, but in this case, the types of Sex discrimination were explained very clearly by Alex Harper who also provided some examples:

• Direct discrimination: Asking the woman in the team (regardless of her role or level of seniority) to make tea at every meeting.
• Indirect discrimination: Given that caring responsibilities fall more on women than men, making people work from the office when this is not necessary or organising meetings early in the morning during school run .
• Sex harassment: This is not sexual in nature. It would include displaying certain attitudes or bias towards someone for being a woman, for example.
• Sexual harassment: inappropriate remarks and jokes that are sexual in nature, unwanted sexual advances etc...

Attendees were reminded that given these cases are time critical, it is important to report them to HR, specially when they are recurring.

Furthermore companies should be proactive addressing any concerns because The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023, will come into force on 26 October 2024, and it will amend the Equality Act 2010 in two respects:

• New duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees.
• Companies could suffer an uplift of 25% in sexual harassment compensations where an employer is found to have breached the new duty

(Read: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/51/enacted )

In the context of maternity discrimination we heard of Enhanced redundancy protections under the Maternity Leave, Adoption Leave and Shared Parental Leave (Amendment) Regulations 2024 . https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2024/9780348254846

Those include the statutory right to offer a first right of refusal to a vacancy (should there be one) to pregnant women and returners.

Further reading:

• During the conversations there were several references to the https://pregnantthenscrewed.com/ website as a useful resource

Whistleblowing, a topic that NAWIC explored in depth last year, sparked a big discussion and although I will not share specifics, it was very clear that the protections that are meant to be in place are not always protecting whistle-blowers from backlash.

During the discussions related to Contractual terms there were some interesting pointers:

Clawback terms: these are clauses where the company offers a perk with conditions aimed at recovering costs if the employment is terminated early. (these could include payment of Professional qualification, or extended paternity or maternity)

• When applied to all employees are not discriminatory, however, best practice would include a sliding scale that provides clarity. (Period for 100% payback, for 70% etc)

Contract terms notes

• Maternity payment enhancements: Some companies have rules related to second rounds.
• Flexible working: There are 8 reasons why companies may refuse flexible working (See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/revised-acas-code-of-practice-on-requests-for-flexible-working/acas-code-of-practice-on-requests-for-flexible-working-html-version )

Further reading:

Acas https://www.acas.org.uk/statutory-flexible-working-requests/the-right-to-request

Thank you Chloe Xidhas and Alex Harper for such a great event.

To attendees for your many contributions to the discussion, including some really honest accounts. Thank you for your trust and for sharing with the group and contributing to our collective growth.

And of course, just as Chloe did a few days ago, thank you so much to Annie Clift Rosemary Silver Lucia Luo Karen Rothwell Beatrice Ronchetti Vanessa Cazaubon Mara Bravo the fantastic committee for National Association of Women In Construction (NAWIC) London & South East who are continuously working on delivering such a topical calendar of events

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