The University of Bath and the campus trade unions are united in their commitment to reducing the gender pay gap. Put simply, the gender pay gap is the difference between the average hourly earnings of men and women. However, we also view the gender pay gap as an indicator of a deeper issue of injustice that we aim to tackle.
UK law commits the University to ensuring two principles:
Equal pay for jobs of equal value; and
Equal opportunity to do those jobs, regardless of gender or other protected characteristic
Pay gaps are affected by a number of broad structural and societal issues. However, institutional structures and practices also play a key role in their creation and maintenance. All parties fully commit to doing those things that are within our control to eradicate pay inequalities from our University community.
In 2019, the University established a Gender Pay Gap Working Group, jointly with the trade unions, to take a data-led approach in investigating the causes of the gender pay gap and to develop an action plan for reducing the gap. Key themes that emerged from that work related to the underlying structural causes of the pay gap at the University. The University has pursued many of the recommended actions from the report, including:
ensuring all roles are advertised with flexible working options being explicitly welcomed
systems and process changes in our recruitment practices including improved access to specialist recruitment advice and tools
the launch of a portal to support probationary academics, and
the review of existing leadership and management programmes, along with the continued support for Aurora, as well as the addition of the Accelerate programme aimed at BAME women
However, we have shared concerns about the pace of progress and agree that further action is needed. Moreover, and as the Working Group report noted, there are areas of analysis that need further exploration. The University and the trade unions therefore commit to working together with a view to formalising a collective agreement, including action plans and targets, by the end of the academic year in 2021, to address the gender pay gap. The actions identified in the Working Group’s report will form the starting point for these efforts. We recognise that gender intersects with race, ethnicity and disability, and analysis of ethnicity pay gaps and disability pay gaps and their intersection with gender pay gaps will be part of this work.
We, the University and the trade unions, further commit to regularly monitoring and reviewing the achievement of that plan.