Dialogue about fair wages – How can we talk about wages and wage equality?
A set of materials for shop stewards seeking to secure a fair wage.
It’s almost a taboo to talk about wages – therefore it can be difficult to do anything about unfair wages and unequal wages.
Broadly speaking, all salaried employees are of the opinion that wages should be fair and based on objective impartiality, and also that there should be wage equality between men and women.
Repeatedly, SFI – the Danish National Centre for Social Research – has pointed out that in Denmark there is a 17-18% wage gap between men and women , in the sense that on average women earn 17-18% less than men when adjustments are made for length of service, level of professional training, whether work is full-time or part-time, etc.
We can only do something in real terms about the anomalies if we start talking more openly about wages. There is good reason for us to do this, starting now – because we now have new legislation giving us better opportunities to produce statistics and to talk about specific wage differences between men and women.
This booklet points to means of starting to talk more openly about wages. When we can talk about this and find out facts – facts that may surprise us – we can begin to calculate, produce statistics and document anomalies. And THEN we can
put things right. Wishing you all good luck in achieving wage equality!
FIU-Ligestilling (FIU Equality) Spring 2015