I won equal pay - and this is how I did it

It was an open secret for years that all the women who did my job earned less than the men. A lot less. I don’t know why we all went along with it so readily. Lack of self-worth? Organisational culture? Fear of being labelled a troublemaker? Probably a mix of all three.

It was only when a friend who lectured in human resources plainly set out that it was my legal right to be paid the same as my male colleagues for doing the same job, that I began to even consider asking for equal pay. Had I known at the start how protracted, stressful and lonely a process it was going to be, I’m not sure I’d ever have embarked upon it.

My battle dates back to long before the current conversations. Open discussion about salaries was discouraged and any women who’d been successful before me were rumoured to have signed gagging clauses, or Non-Disclosure Agreements, and so were legally bound to keep quiet. I was on my own.

The first tussle I had was with myself. Even the idea of taking on my employer and its ranks of lawyers made me feel sick. Anxious colleagues surreptitiously advised me against it, trotting out those self-limiting phrases that we so often succumb to: now’s not a good time; don’t rock the boat; there’ll be cuts elsewhere if you pursue this.

Not every woman will be so fortunate, but a handful of male employees told me what they were paid. The difference between their salaries and mine was eye-watering. One who was particularly appalled by the yawning, indefensible gap said, “You’ve been done up like a kipper – you have to tackle this.”

I had naively assumed my benevolent bosses would see me right. How wrong I had been. Eventually, after researching the law, the idea of not asking for equal pay seemed worse than asking for it.

And the law, or more specifically the Equality Act 2010, really is your best bet - and the best place to start. I learnt its language, so I would sound credible and be better informed than my superiors when I got the chance to make my case.

Equal pay is about gender, so I needed at least one male comparator who did the same work, like work or work or equal value. I was forensic in gathering evidence that my pay system was “tainted by sex” with a cluster of men paid more than a cluster of women in similar roles.

Getting the process underway was intensely frustrating. I had to wait weeks for the first meeting with my line manager. It was an exercise in procrastination and obfuscation. Informal discussions rumbled on month after month.

To try to focus minds, I submitted an equal pay questionnaire to flush out how my employer justified paying me less. The Government has since scrapped these questionnaires as part of the equal pay claim process but they are still useful, especially for women who suspect they are underpaid but don’t have concrete figures. Sample versions can be found online.

My HR department answered my questions by rubbishing my skills and experience, and dismissing my chosen comparators, even though the law says the woman decides whom she wishes to be compared with - not the employer.

Although this was very dispiriting, it didn’t matter. It was my way of demonstrating that I was following the necessary steps in case I ever ended up at a tribunal. The most important lesson I learned was to write up and email back a summary of everything we had talked about in every meeting. My company loathed paper trails but it was vital I built up a body of evidence. It was my proof that I had tried to cross the I’s and dot the T’s whereas my employer was being evasive.

I felt like giving up so many times in this slow, corrosive war of attrition. I doubted the strength of my case and my worth as an employee. But to give up would have made me complicit in my own pay inequality. So, from time to time, I would take a break from the exasperation and give my self-esteem a chance to recover.

Many organisations deal with equal pay matter through their formal grievance procedure that triggers a defined process over a finite time period, but my bosses didn’t want to get trapped by that. Instead they told me their lawyers were perfectly comfortable with how much I was paid, and they kept on saying it for more than a year - right up until the point that they changed their minds.

I recall clearly the day that something shifted, when they seemed to clock that I wasn’t giving up.

I just kept making my case, politely but firmly. After several insulting offers, they came up with a markedly improved settlement that included some back pay but no lost pension entitlements - so pay inequality will stay with me for the rest of my life.

True, this was not a complete resolution in line with the law but to achieve that, I’d have had to go to court and that can take years and cost a fortune. Each claimant needs to know when to stop and this was enough for me – I had won pay parity, an apology and an acknowledgment that I did equal work. That admission was priceless.

In turn, I was able to pass on my expertise to other women, to bolster their confidence and help them navigate the equal pay claim process. There was no retribution against me by my employer and I stayed in my post. None of the men who shared their salaries lost out. All continued to receive pay rises each year - and now so did I.