Do men have to pay a high price for sexual equality?

Hundreds of thousands of men face salary cuts of up to £15,000 to fund increases for women staff. Equal pay claims for up to 1.5 million public sector workers could cost the taxpayer more than £10 billion and mean that hundreds of thousands of men will lose up to 40 per cent of their salary. Town halls are struggling to pay compensation bills totalling £3 billion to fund up to six years’ back pay for women workers after equal wage settlements. But now employers are finding it too expensive to finance pay rises for up to 700,000 women.
Both employers and unions claim that cutting male salaries is not in breach of existing legislation provided a new contract is signed. In some cases salaries are protected for two to three years until female pay reaches the same level, or the men are given different job titles to get round the problem.
Equal pay claims are being pursued by women clerical workers at the Ministry of Defence and by teaching assistants. Public sector unions, such as the GMB, T&G and Unison, are finding themselves in the difficult position of trying to protect male workers while boosting the pay of women staff. Although tens of thousands of women are entitled to six years’ back pay of up to £30,000, unions are sometimes striking deals with employers to try to protect male staff.It doesn’t have to be that way, many countries and companies equal out the gap without impacting men’s salaries and benefits.

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