Updated: March 2024.
All Usdaw members of staff are paid according to transparent pay scales, which have been negotiated with a recognised trade union and by the staff associations representing the different staff groupings within the Union. This ensures that all members of staff are paid the same rate for the job regardless of gender (or any other protected characteristic).
Comparison of mean pay in the Union shows a gap in favour of men of 20.5%. Comparison of median pay in the Union shows a gap in favour of men of 33.5%. The figures for the four quartiles are below:
| Quartile | Male | Female | Total | Male % | Female % |
| Q1 | 15 | 72 | 87 | 17.2 | 82.8 |
| Q2 | 26 | 61 | 87 | 29.9 | 70.1 |
| Q3 | 47 | 40 | 87 | 54 | 46 |
| Q4 | 54 | 34 | 88 | 61.4 | 38.6 |
| Total | 142 | 207 | 349 | 40.7 | 59.3 |
Median single figure pay gap 33.5%
Mean single figure pay gap 20.5%
NB: Bonuses are not paid to any staff within the Union.
To provide some context to explain the Union’s gender pay gap, our workforce is mostly female (59.3%). The Union has a majority of women in the lower clerical and ancillary pay grades; this is reflected in Quartile 1 in the above table, including a significant number of part-time members of staff (40 female and 2 male part-time staff in total). On the other hand, as can be seen in the figures for Quartile 4 above, the Union has a preponderance of men in senior positions (61.4%). These factors impact on comparative pay levels.
All our new starters begin employment at the bottom of their respective pay grade. Progression through that pay grade is based solely on length of service and is not based on any kind of subjective performance review undertaken by a manager. This, coupled with the fact that the Union has very low turnover, means that new staff are having their salary compared to staff who have been here long enough to have reached the top of their grades.
Work on eradicating the gender pay gap
Usdaw will strive to reduce our mean gender pay gap and will report progress annually in line with our legal obligations. We have taken the following measures in recent years to address the gender pay gap in the Union:
- Support for women returning to work - through shared parental leave, compressed hours, part-time, and term-time only opportunities.
- Continuous improvement of the recruitment process – all managers have received training on recruitment and equalities issues, including ensuring that all interviewers have an awareness of the role of unconscious bias in the recruitment and selection process.
Paddy Lillis
General Secretary