Make ethnicity pay gap reporting mandatory, says TUC

The TUC has called for employers to be given a legal duty to report ethnicity pay gaps following the release of new government guidance on the issue.

The union body’s general secretary Paul Nowak said ministers need to take “bold action to confront inequality and racism in the labour market”, saying the “obvious first step is mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting – not just voluntary guidance”.

“Too often BAME workers are paid less for doing the same job as their White colleagues,” he said, adding that employers should be required to publish an action plan for closing the gap alongside raw data.

The TUC’s stance was echoed by Business in the Community’s race director Sandra Kerr, who called the guidance “a welcome step” but added that “the only way to close the ethnicity pay gap is to make reporting mandatory for businesses with over 250 employees”.