Blog: It’s time to Bridge the Gap

As a trade union, fighting for decent pay for working people is in our DNA. As Britain’s biggest organisation for women, fighting for gender equality is at the heart of everything we do. It’s no surprise then that ending the gender pay cap is a critical priority for UNISON. Right now, men earn 18% more than women in the UK, and though the gap has narrowed in recent decades, that’s still a huge disparity between men and women in the workplace.

The battle to end the gender pay gap is far from won – that’s why we’ve launched our Bridge the Gap campaign.

The gender pay gap is a blight on our society. Ending the gender pay gap means ensuring that work of equal value receives the same pay, and fighting to stop work largely done by women from being considered lower-skilled, and receiving lower pay. It also means getting more women into senior roles across our public services whilst fighting to ensure that poverty pay (which disproportionately affects women) is a thing of the past.

It will take all of us who care about equality and fairness playing our part to overturn these structural inequalities in our society. Yet the work our union and others have done already shows we can achieve real change. UNISON’s amazing activists will be working in collaboration with employers and MPs to implement changes in our workplaces that will make a real difference to working women’s lives.

Together, I know we can bridge the gap once and for all.

Find out more information about the campaign here.