Women working full-time earn on average 17% less per hour than men working full-time. For ethnic minority women, the gap is even higher at 20%. For women working part-time compared to men working full-time the gap is 36% per hour – rising to 45% in London.
Today, working women effectively received their last pay cheque of the year. This is because the 17% full-time gender pay gap is equivalent to men being paid all year round while women work for free after the 31st October.
The excellent Fawcett Society works hard every year to highlight this important issue by co-ordinating a series of events across the country to raise awareness, and to put pressure on the Government to reform legislation so that this disgraceful inequality in pay is outlawed and brought to an end.
So this morning Brighton & Hove Greens converged on Brighton station, to collect signatures for Fawcett's petition on Equal Pay, and to give out free biscuits to commuters with low blood sugar - with a 17% chunk missing to give them food for thought as well.
I baked my contribution last night (above).
I used this recipe, and these handy icing pens for (*ahem*) the Propaganda, and they were very tasty biscuits indeed.
But sadly not quite sweet enough to replace the bitter taste in my mouth whenever I think about the facts of pay inequality in the UK.
We got an average of three signatures per minute :) I love proper campaigning :D
