Speaker 1: So we've been pretty distracted in recent weeks with the
Speaker 1: political turmoil and upheavals in the markets, and we've been
Speaker 1: on picking them week by week with lots of bonus
Speaker 1: episodes and bringing all the experts. But you know, meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the real world has been rumbling on. And this is
Speaker 1: a story we've been meaning to bring you for some time.
Speaker 1: It's about equality and equal pay here in the City
Speaker 1: of London. It's an issue that affects so many people
Speaker 1: working around here and all around the world and really
Speaker 1: does affect their lives. And there's been a case going
Speaker 1: on now for some time involving one of the big
Speaker 1: global banks, BNP Paribar, and a light has been shown
Speaker 1: on some the practices at the bank, which has lessons
Speaker 1: we think to tell all of us about the future
Speaker 1: for equality here in the City. I'm Franz and Lacqua
Speaker 1: and I'm David Merritt, and this is In the City,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's podcast, connecting you to the stories and the voices
Speaker 1: at the heart of the City of London. So this
Speaker 1: week we are taking a deep look at the paid
Speaker 1: discrepancy between men and women working in finance. And there
Speaker 1: was a verdict in a London court case that could
Speaker 1: shine even more light on what is actually still a
Speaker 1: widening gap. Yeah, for the record, he'll have no fury
Speaker 1: as a woman paid less. Jonathan Browning, legal reporter here
Speaker 1: in London, joins us. So, Jonathan, you're going to help
Speaker 1: us unpack this very specific case of a broker at
Speaker 1: BNP pair bar in London and the equal payard it
Speaker 1: that was ordered as part of the verdict in her
Speaker 1: equal pay suit. Before we get the details, let's just
Speaker 1: paint the picture of where we are now when it
Speaker 1: comes to equal pay in the city. Because the very
Speaker 1: idea of women being paid less than their male colleagues
Speaker 1: should have gone out years ago. But we know that
Speaker 1: that's not the case. Um, So the tell us about
Speaker 1: the reality of the situation now and and really that
Speaker 1: this verdict is not so surprising. It's not in one sense.
Speaker 1: I mean, the UK became the biggest country to zoom
Speaker 1: in on this on this explosive topic of the pay
Speaker 1: gap between men and women when it asked for mandatory
Speaker 1: reporting on wage differences in But the point is that
Speaker 1: that was a fairly blunt instrument. Um. It shows that
Speaker 1: men are paid a median of nine more than women.
Speaker 1: That's what men and women are on average. It's not
Speaker 1: a comparison of like for light roles. It highlights the
Speaker 1: extent to which women have been underrepresented. It's all we
Speaker 1: have and until now is it worse in the finance industry.
Speaker 1: It is. Women in in the finance industry make significantly
Speaker 1: mess less than men. The pay gap is especially wide
Speaker 1: in investment banking, where some of the highest paid employees
Speaker 1: work and they tend to be men. But just just
Speaker 1: to clarify on the data, you say, it's about the
Speaker 1: medium pay, isn't it. So it's not showing you say
Speaker 1: what someone doing the same job is showing. What is
Speaker 1: showing a little bit as well, is that there are
Speaker 1: fewer women in senior positions, which are the higher paid
Speaker 1: jobs as well. Right, that's part of the problem, very
Speaker 1: much so, and most employees are very keen to say
Speaker 1: this doesn't mean equal pay. It's not a comparison of
Speaker 1: like for like. This is about the averages that men
Speaker 1: and women and and has been as I say, like
Speaker 1: all that any employee has to rely on, because because
Speaker 1: that's all we've had so far. But this case, what
Speaker 1: what was different about this case? What sort of like
Speaker 1: did it shine on the issue here at So the
Speaker 1: big thing is the fact that the verdict at the
Speaker 1: end and the the remedy that was ordered will go
Speaker 1: into some serious detail about equal pay. But this is
Speaker 1: a case about Stacy Mackin. Hello and Stacy Machin, who
Speaker 1: was a prime brokerage manager at b MP Parry Back.
Speaker 1: I spoke with Stacy Mackin and her barrister, Sailer Ali
Speaker 1: in the Bloomberg studio about a month to go to
Speaker 1: talk through these issues. She was a sixteen year veteran
Speaker 1: over the bank and New Zealander who relocated to London.
Speaker 1: She called this like her dream job, but she started
Speaker 1: to fear perhaps that she was being paid less than
Speaker 1: her colleagues for the same amount of work. BNP paraba,
Speaker 1: We're paying a mail in the same role more in
Speaker 1: salary and seven times the bonus for no good reason.
Speaker 1: All I can say is that I felt very, very
Speaker 1: lit down by the bank. I had raised a genuine
Speaker 1: complaint and HI should have investigated it properly, but instead
Speaker 1: they made a conscious decision to side with male discriminators
Speaker 1: and cover up the discrimination. And then, I mean to
Speaker 1: be clear, this is this is a prime brokerage job
Speaker 1: at a big investment back. So this is a high
Speaker 1: paid job, right, This is we're talking serious money here,
Speaker 1: we are. I think her pay was slightly north of
Speaker 1: already a hundred thousand, but that's not in this sense
Speaker 1: the point, um. It's it's the fact that a colleague,
Speaker 1: an exact comparator, was being paid more. So, this is
Speaker 1: not only about pay discrimination, right, it's equal pay violation
Speaker 1: discrimination laddish culture that came out in the trial, as
Speaker 1: I imagine, people submitted evidence, and it's also females in
Speaker 1: HR running a bit of a sham grievance, it is,
Speaker 1: And initially a lot of the laddish culture got the headlines.
Speaker 1: There were some pretty appalling episodes where at one point
Speaker 1: in time she came Stacy Mack and came to work
Speaker 1: the next morning to find a witch's hat on her
Speaker 1: desk and that had been tribunal found left there by
Speaker 1: a group of male colleagues who had been out drinking.
Speaker 1: When she made comments and complaints, there was a sort
Speaker 1: of familiar refrain of not now Stacy, not now Stacy,
Speaker 1: and it became kind of a thing. So that was
Speaker 1: what got the headlines. Perhaps initially but the actual meet
Speaker 1: of the case, the concern was around equal pay. I
Speaker 1: think if you are working in an environment where women
Speaker 1: are but littled, then that's a pretty good indication that
Speaker 1: there there is an underlying problem in giner pay. And
Speaker 1: the FCO themselves have made a great play about the
Speaker 1: fact that in a culture where sexist behavior is tolerated
Speaker 1: is not dealt with in any way, then other problems
Speaker 1: fester and misconduct is much more likely to happen. So
Speaker 1: what happens now? There was what two million pounds being
Speaker 1: awarded her in January, but actually the judge went a
Speaker 1: step further, Yeah, she did. The award of the money
Speaker 1: is a significant, significant sum. We think it's probably in
Speaker 1: the top ten of all employment tribunal awards. When a
Speaker 1: discrimination claim is made there is there is in theory
Speaker 1: no upper limit, but this award stands out for the
Speaker 1: size of it as much as anything else. But even
Speaker 1: more important is this essentially an order, a requirement from
Speaker 1: the tribunal for an equal pay Ordit that had never
Speaker 1: happened before. I requested the equal pay order as part
Speaker 1: of my remedy because I became aware that there was
Speaker 1: a wider problem. But Basically, I just wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure that no other woman at BNP would have to
Speaker 1: go through what I went through. I mean, it's been
Speaker 1: fifty odd years since the Equal Pay it and yet
Speaker 1: women still have not reached pay parity, and in my opinion,
Speaker 1: the UK regulations don't go far enough. I think every
Speaker 1: large employer who has a material pay get should have
Speaker 1: to publish the underlying data. Otherwise we're just not going
Speaker 1: to make any progress. As we were saying, that's not
Speaker 1: just going to show you what the median amounts are.
Speaker 1: That's going to look like for like people in jobs
Speaker 1: throughout the firm, where the male men and women are
Speaker 1: being paied equally top to bottom, the whole way through
Speaker 1: the London branch. It's an absolutely enormous undertaking and something
Speaker 1: you know that employers might have done and kept private.
Speaker 1: This time around, we understand that's to be made public
Speaker 1: and that's the whole point, right because that's when it
Speaker 1: will have an impact because people can look across and
Speaker 1: see whether or not and that's just BMP Power bar
Speaker 1: are going to have to do that. Any other bank's
Speaker 1: going to follow suit At the moment. This is just
Speaker 1: for b MP Barry Bar and they have just completed
Speaker 1: the audit. They've sent it to the tribunal. But we've
Speaker 1: started to see other claimants in employment tribunal cases in
Speaker 1: the financial services industry asking for that too. It becomes
Speaker 1: a remedy beyond the kind of personal award of of
Speaker 1: of of damages, something bigger than that. And that's something
Speaker 1: now that um other claimants are starting to ask of
Speaker 1: the tribunal ty. So been BNPS response. So they never
Speaker 1: appealed any of the decisions, both at the what's called
Speaker 1: the liability hearing where they discovered the issues, and then
Speaker 1: and then in the remedy hearing. Either they accept in
Speaker 1: a sense that they doesn't mean to say they didn't
Speaker 1: fight it tooth and nail. They thought it tooth and nail.
Speaker 1: But at the end they've been very clear and they
Speaker 1: said that we fell short in our duty, Tom miss Mackin.
Speaker 1: They're considering the tribunals judgment to see what they can learn,
Speaker 1: and they have conducted this pay audit. So BNP Power
Speaker 1: Bar were showcasing themselves throughout this whole process as some
Speaker 1: sort of champions of equality, even literally as the time
Speaker 1: the discrimination hearing was happening, Gen Laurent won a favor
Speaker 1: of CEO was publicly championing this Heath for She campaign
Speaker 1: that the bank was leading the Newermatic champion and the
Speaker 1: c for a large bank as a citizen and a
Speaker 1: further and personally committed to drive forward the employment of
Speaker 1: women made he was named a partner in the campaign
Speaker 1: pledge to take affirmative action to combat discrimination, but the
Speaker 1: result was literally they were also fighting tooth and nail
Speaker 1: in a London employment tribunal. Surely Stacy macam must feel
Speaker 1: pretty frustrated by that. I think, yeah, I think she does.
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting that they said that they have
Speaker 1: worked ambitiously on ginger equality for twenty years and there's
Speaker 1: a huge difference between ambition and action, and their defense
Speaker 1: was was what were they trying to discredit? Was that?
Speaker 1: What was their defense? Yeah? I like, I mean, initially
Speaker 1: they didn't even admit that there was this discrepancy. It
Speaker 1: was only through the litigation process that mac and discovered
Speaker 1: that a male colleague in an equivalent role was being
Speaker 1: being paid twenty five percent more than she was, and
Speaker 1: that discrepancy only got wider as this male colleague received
Speaker 1: bonuses and a special allowance. They said it wasn't comparable,
Speaker 1: but the fundamental point was that his bonus was more
Speaker 1: than five times Stacy mackins she I think also feels
Speaker 1: that it was noteworthy that none of the individuals at
Speaker 1: BMP Parry Bar were in any way disciplined, and that's
Speaker 1: that's still the case. None of the discriminators have been disciplined,
Speaker 1: despite this being defined as gross misconduct by the Compliance Department,
Speaker 1: and despite BMP publicly stating on the website that they're
Speaker 1: burning discrimination of all types. Now, what I can tell
Speaker 1: you from the remedy hearing, we discovered that all discriminators
Speaker 1: received their bonuses after the judgment against them. I just wonder, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: and none of this is really surprising, right, that these
Speaker 1: things happen. It's shocking, but not surprising. We all hear
Speaker 1: stories about either sexual harassment or women being treated differently
Speaker 1: at banks. Is it overall changing or is it changing
Speaker 1: at such a glacial pace that actually doesn't make much difference.
Speaker 1: I mean, something like this has a real impact because
Speaker 1: it is a discernible results from a individual's case. This
Speaker 1: is a tool, this is a piece of this is
Speaker 1: a document. We don't yet know how it's going to
Speaker 1: be made available at the moment. The tribunal has that
Speaker 1: has that the audit and it is considering it. But
Speaker 1: we've never been in this situation before, so we don't
Speaker 1: quite know how it's going to be released. This is
Speaker 1: this is some something kind of tangible and that's I
Speaker 1: think what makes it stand out. And you know, to
Speaker 1: this point, I mean, it isn't that surprising, is that
Speaker 1: there must be people classibly, people listening to this podcast
Speaker 1: who have experienced that laddish behavior in the workplace, who
Speaker 1: might suspect that their colleagues are getting paid more than
Speaker 1: them for the same job. Are we going to see
Speaker 1: many more cases now brought forward or coming to light? Well,
Speaker 1: it's true. I asked the same question of Saila Alien,
Speaker 1: Stacy ack Ands, Barrisster. How widespread is this problem of
Speaker 1: equal pay, especially in the city. That's more widespread than
Speaker 1: people would think. Nobody walks into a job thinking I'm
Speaker 1: being discriminated against. Well, hopefully nobody walks in with that view,
Speaker 1: but the fact is it happens. I talked to a
Speaker 1: number of women who don't know what the pay gap is,
Speaker 1: and it's it's difficult to tell them what to do.
Speaker 1: They're acting on a suspicion that someone is treated differently,
Speaker 1: and then they have to bring a claim based on that.
Speaker 1: And it's only really then at the disclosure stage of
Speaker 1: the claim when the employer is forced because they have
Speaker 1: a duty from the tribunal to disclose everything that's either
Speaker 1: helpful or adverse to the case for them, and most
Speaker 1: of the time they will be right. But how many
Speaker 1: people would really even get to that stage? As I said,
Speaker 1: I think we'll certainly start seeing these equal pay audits
Speaker 1: being requested of tribunals. It's a power I think that
Speaker 1: no one really realized was available to them. But whether
Speaker 1: or not that has a bigger impact, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think it puts the pressure on BNP Pariba first, and
Speaker 1: then you can be sure that every single HR and
Speaker 1: employment relations team is now aware that that is a
Speaker 1: remedy that could be requested of any other bank. And
Speaker 1: that's I want to get ahead of that now, per
Speaker 1: fix that get that shopping order right to reveal the numbers.
Speaker 1: Because the point about this particular request was the tribunal
Speaker 1: didn't believe that b MP PARRYBA had looked at this
Speaker 1: issue in enough detail, it said, and BP said it had,
Speaker 1: and then it was asked the question of whether or
Speaker 1: not it considered bonuses in that audit, and they said no.
Speaker 1: And so then the tribunal said, well, we simply think
Speaker 1: there are quite there are quite likely to be other
Speaker 1: people in that situation, and therefore we need you to
Speaker 1: conduct this equal pay audit from top to bottom to
Speaker 1: include bonuses. You spoke to her, So did she feel
Speaker 1: vindicated or is it still very difficult for a woman
Speaker 1: to stand up and say, well, actually I'm going to
Speaker 1: go to a tribunal because then you potentially fear that
Speaker 1: you could be unemployable afterwards. Yeah, this was a grueling,
Speaker 1: grueling process. The first hearings were back in Stacy Mackin
Speaker 1: basically did all the work as far as the litigation herself.
Speaker 1: She had a barrister to advocate for her at the
Speaker 1: actual trial like the actual tribunal hearing, but she did
Speaker 1: all the background. She didn't have flisters to do the
Speaker 1: kind of the grunt work she did that all. It's
Speaker 1: very difficult for women to finance cases like this, especially
Speaker 1: when you're paid less in salary and seven times less
Speaker 1: in bonus. And I'll say, the only way I survived.
Speaker 1: It was by being a litigant in person for the
Speaker 1: majority of the time. And what that means is I
Speaker 1: was managing the case myself behind the scenes, and Shayla
Speaker 1: was representing me at the hearings. But if I had
Speaker 1: to hire a solicitor to do that type of work
Speaker 1: and to do all the communications with the bank, then
Speaker 1: it would have cost me a fortune and I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been able to take this forward. I think she
Speaker 1: is she was just she would never have said that
Speaker 1: she was someone who wanted to be initially that advocate
Speaker 1: for equal pay. I think she's somewhat unwilling to be
Speaker 1: in that position, but has found herself in that position
Speaker 1: as someone who is a bit of a standard bearer
Speaker 1: and is now kind of someone who perhaps can advocate.
Speaker 1: It's been quite a battle, um, a David and Goliath battle,
Speaker 1: if you will, UM. But here I am, five years later,
Speaker 1: have come out of it successful, and you know, I'm
Speaker 1: proud that I can help other women and champion them.
Speaker 1: And to the women at BMP, I guess one thing
Speaker 1: I would say is remember that you're in a power position.
Speaker 1: Now We've got this equel pay audit for you. You're
Speaker 1: going to have transparency that you never had before. You
Speaker 1: know that the regulators have already been into BMP on
Speaker 1: the back of my judgment and um the if c
Speaker 1: A are now requiring BMP to log all complaints. So
Speaker 1: I hope it gives them the confidence to go out
Speaker 1: and get the equal pay that they're entitled to. Jonathan,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, thanks for listening to this week's
Speaker 1: in the City. We'll be back next week, but in
Speaker 1: the meantime, if you like our show, please head on
Speaker 1: over to Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts
Speaker 1: and rate, review and subscribe. This episode was hosted by
Speaker 1: me Francine Lakua with Dave Merritt. It was produced by Summersaidi,
Speaker 1: with editing and sound design by Black Maple's. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Jonathan Browning, Stacy Maggen, and Sheila Ally.