Women work for free for the rest of the year from today because of substantial gap between the average pay of men and women. Speaking today on Equal Pay Day Sophie Walker, leader of the Women’s Equality Party (WEP), said that to close the gender pay gap it’s time to take a more integrated approach to ensure we don’t have to keep marking this “depressing day” every year.
The Women’s Equality Party was founded by Sandi Toksvig and Catherine Mayer in March 2015, and launched its policies last month.
Speaking today Walker said: “WE are the only party with a five-point plan to tackle ALL the causes of unequal pay by proposing expansion of flexible working, equal parental leave and more funding for childcare, stronger anti-discrimination processes, employer transparency and help for carers to stay at work.”
“The other parties are all still just fiddling around the edges of this major problem with policies that tweak it instead of tackling it. That’s why, 45 years after equal pay became a legal requirement, we’re still waiting for it to become a reality.”
The WEP is quickly becoming Britain’s fastest growing political party already spawning 65 branches in less than a year, and thousands of members every month.
The party’s five-point plan for closing the pay gap consists of:
– Expansion of flexible working
– Equal parenting and childcare
– Stronger and better-enforced anti-discrimination laws
– Employer transparency
– Support for carers to remain at work.
Speaking at the Women in the World Summit in London last month Catherine Mayer said men are showing their support for the newly formed Party, because “gender equality is good for the economy, for business, for society”
