The audit at FT showed that the majority of people making between £30,000 and £50,000 were women, whereas the £60,000-plus bracket was dominated by men. Of the 90 people earning more than £80,000, 70 were men. (A gender wage disparity is not unique to the FT. BBC was recently forced to disclose a startling pay disparity between their male and female employees.)
The union meeting was called when workers decided upper management wasn’t taking the situation at the paper seriously enough:
“The gender pay gap in FT Editorial is nearly 13% – the biggest shortfall in a decade – and the company’s ‘ambition’ to reach equality by 2022 is worse than the BBC’s present target of 2020,” said Steve Bird, father of the FT’s National Union of Journalists chapel, in an email to 600 staff.
“Working for a private company where even the salaries of the editor and CEO are not disclosed does not inspire confidence in the FT’s commitment to transparency.”
The Financial Times gave a statement to Sky News disputing the claim that they don’t take the pay gap seriously:
“We will be reporting on pay in due course, in line with the UK government timetable. From benchmarking we have seen we compare favourably to the industry.”
FT says that it has a “50/50 female-male split” among its employees, with an increasing number of women in upper-level positions, and the paper claims to have several initiatives already in place to address gender discrimination. The union will release further information on any plans for a strike following the meeting on Wednesday.
