New Bill will help to close pay gap

[calamity jane]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090425...p-6323e80.html

New Bill will help to close pay gap

3 hours 12 mins ago

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The recession is no time to let up in the drive for equal pay between men and women, deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman has said. Skip related content
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Harriet Harman says the new Bill will help close the pay gap


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She said legislation to be introduced on Monday will take a "step forward" on equality by obliging companies to report on pay differences between men and women.
The Government was criticised by business leaders on Friday after it was revealed firms are to be forced by law to publish salary details of their staff.
The Equalities Bill will mean companies employing more than 250 workers will be encouraged to give pay details and if enough progress has not been made by 2013 on the gender gap, legislation will be brought forward.
Ms Harman told delegates at Welsh Labour's conference in Swansea that it was not fair that women were paid 20% less than men when they made up half the workforce.
"It's pay discrimination and it should not be left to the individual woman to explain - it should be down to the employer to explain and to justify if pay is unequal", she said.
The Bill will also give public authorities a duty to examine how they can narrow the gap between the rich and poor.
She added: "I think that when times are hard, fairness is even more important, that people feel that we are all in it together. Equality and fairness is necessary for a meritocracy. It is backward-looking societies which are characterises by rigid hierarchies, women knowing their place and oppression of gays and lesbians."
She hailed this week's Budget, saying that it was necessary to allow public borrowing to rise to fund spending that will make the recession as short and shallow as possible.
Referring to the creation of the new 50p top rate of income tax, she said: "We believe that fairness and equality is necessary and that when it comes to paying back the public debt those who have most should contribute most."

[Amy]

Re: New Bill will help to close pay gap

I am completely sick to the back teeth of Harriet Harperson and her misguided relentless pursuit of all things equal.

The woman is a walking conundrum.

She seeks to close the class divide, but not at the expense of sending her own children to the local comprehensive despite her well known opposition to selective education.

She has spoken out against the wrongs of sexual stereotyping yet proudly boasts that her political website is "lilac and written in italics, more like chick lit than a political website."

She preaches about family values yet in a 1990 paper she rigidly argued that "it cannot be assumed that men are bound to be an asset to family life or that the presence of fathers in families is necessarily a means to social cohesion." Does she really think that fathers, who tend to be male, are dispensable?

She is reported as having a rather posh accent, yet attempts to cover it by dropping the letter "h" at regular intervals. She clearly believes that this behaviour enamours her to the masses.

Has she not considered that publishing salary details of staff will encourage companies to employ fewer women, not more.

She, is in fact discriminitary. She clearly believes that women cannot get on in the workplace without her help; women will not get that top job, simply because they are women without her intervention. Her over inflated opinion of herself knows no bounds.

She is a misandrist. Her children have taken her maiden name over that of their Father's, as is customary and her husband introduces himself as Jack Harman.

Jacqui Smith tried to pull the "poor little woman" card recently when she claimed she was being "picked on" over her expenses scandal bleating that it was because she is a woman.

Female Labour MPs revelled in the term "Blair's Babes" yet they do not consider this a sexist term.

None of it washes and the sooner the lot of them are consigned to the political wilderness for the forseeable, the better.

[Guest]

Re: New Bill will help to close pay gap

Harman does not have too long left. Since she once had designs on the leadership, Hash Brown has decided to ensure that she becomes the Labour fallguy for June's local and European elections, widely expected to be disastrous for the government.

She has been placed in charge of the campaign rather than the cabinet's election co-ordinator, Douglas Alexander, the local government secretary Hazel Blears or the party's most proven electoral strategist, Peter Mandelson – meaning she is liable to attract the blame for any losses.

That way she is out of the running for the leadership of the party when the local and European elections deliver the hammerblow that is expected, although it is hard to see how Labour could lose many more town hall seats since they hold so few.

Some supporters have suggested the aftermath could be Harman's moment, but that would be extremely difficult if she were seen as the Cabinet minister who had led Labour's troops to defeat.

McBean must know he is defeated and yet even in defeat, he wants to ensure anyone who has displayed disloyalty does not succeed him, although quite who would want that particular poisoned chalice I have no idea.