Disability Pay Gap Day marks the time of year when disabled workers effectively stop earning and work for free for the remainder of the year. The gap is now higher than it was a decade ago. The TUC has published new statistics showing:
- The pay gap between non-disabled and disabled workers is now 14.6%, equivalent to £1.90 an hour or £66.50 per week.
- Disabled women face an even bigger pay penalty of 30%, amounting to £3.73 an hour.
- Disabled people effectively stop getting paid from today, so work for free for the last 47 days of the year.
Paddy Lillis – Usdaw General Secretary says: “These new statistics highlight the need for urgent action to close the disability pay gap and to tackle the structural barriers and discrimination evident in the labour market. Today, 14 November, is when the average disabled worker effectively stops being paid, compared to the average non-disabled worker.
“It is disturbing that the disability pay gap is higher than it was a decade ago, demonstrating there has been no progress on this issue. In the midst of a cost-of-living crisis when disabled people are struggling to pay their bills, they will effectively work 47 days without pay.
“This Government has failed on disability rights and has not brought forward the long-promised employment bill to improve the rights of all workers. Only Labour has the policies and ideas to deliver the change our members so desperately need. Their new deal for workers is a game changer that will make work pay and end insecure employment.”
Labour’s new deal would:
- Introduce disability and ethnicity pay gap reporting.
- Strengthen flexible working rights by introducing a day one right to work flexibly.
- Ban zero-hours contracts to help end the scourge of insecure work.
- Give all workers day one rights on the job.
- Ensure all workers get reasonable notice of any change in shifts or working time.
- Beef up enforcement to uphold employment rights.
Notes for editors:
Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is the UK's fifth biggest trade union with over 350,000 members. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also has many members in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemical industry and other trades
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