This summer, 30 female managers, backed by the Transport
Salaried Staff Association, launched an equal pay claim against Network
Rail. The managers allege that they are being paid between
£3,000 and £4,000 less a year than male colleagues
doing the same job. The TSSA claims that if these 30 claimants are
successful, 3,000 female employees of Network Rail could be
eligible for pay rises, costing Network Rail in excess of £10
million per year.
This claim highlights that the gender pay gap, although
narrowing, is still very much present in 2014. This is particularly
evident looking at recent figures released by the House of Commons Library which show that in
1997 the pay gap between men and women was 27.5 per cent, over the
following years it narrowed steadily, but in 2013 it rose slightly
from 19.6 per cent to 19.7 per cent.
