Latest news with #payequity
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
ESPY Awards Shower Kudos on Women as Host Shane Gillis Delivers Edgy Jokes About Female Athletes
Host Shane Gillis brought his trademark brand of combative humor to the opening monologue of Wednesday night's ESPY Awards in Hollywood, drawing a mixed response from the audience of professional athletes and Hollywood celebrities. The host's jabs came in contrast to the high volume of kudos bestowed on major figures in women's sports, including gymnast Simone Biles, rugby star Ilona Maher, recently retired soccer superstar Alex Morgan, retired WNBA great Diana Taurasi, tennis star Sloane Stephens and Penn State volleyball coach Katie Schumacher-Cawley. Olympic gymnast Suni Lee got the nod for best comeback athlete, a gender mixed category. More from Variety How to Watch the 2025 ESPY Awards Online Without Cable Shane Gillis Comedy 'Tires' Renewed for Season 3 at Netflix Shane Gillis to Host the 2025 ESPYs Morgan and Taurasi were jointly honored with the ESPYs Icon Award for their work beyond the game to advance women's sports and improve working conditions for players. 'The way you opened up doors for women outside the game is legendary,' Taurasi told Morgan. The two-time Olympic soccer medalist noted 'We both fought to leave our game in a better place than when we found it.' Morgan added that their advocacy for pay equity for female athletes built on a foundation established by earlier generations. 'We stand on the shoulders of giants,' Morgan said. 'Thanks to them, we never have to apologize for speaking up or fighting to raise the bar.' Schumacher-Cawley, who is battling breast cancer, received the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance. She spoke eloquently about how her training as an athlete in team sports helped her wage war with cancer. 'That jersey we wear means everything, and the bond we share is unbreakable,' Schumacher-Cawley said. 'Sports are amazing, and these women and the women that came before have set the stage to where we are now.' Gillis acknowledged several times that the jokes were not landing. In one example, the 'Tires' star said, 'Donald Trump wants to stage a UFC Fight on the White House lawn. The last time he staged a fight in DC, Mike Pence almost died.' The response was lukewarm, followed by a few scattered claps and cheers. Gillis then told the audience, 'Alright, you don't have to do that. It was fine, I didn't write it.' Gillis salvaged the moment with another joke at Donald Trump's expense. He said, 'Actually, there was supposed to be an Epstein joke here, but I guess it got deleted. Probably deleted itself, right? Probably never existed.' Gillis also took aim at WNBA star point guard Caitlin Clark. He started by joking, 'It's been a big year for the WNBA. I love Caitlin Clark. She and I have a lot in common. We're both whites from the Midwest who have nailed a lot of threes.' Behind a so-so reaction, Gillis added, 'There you go, lighten up a little. It's not serious. We'll see about this one.' Gillis then delivered a line that also fell flat in the Dolby Theater, 'When Caitlin Clark retires from the WNBA, she's going to work at a Waffle House so she can continue doing what she loves most: fist-fighting Black women.' Other highlights of the 2025 ESPYs included the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage to pioneering Black basketball player Oscar Robinson, who founded the NBA Players Assn. Previous ESPYS hosts have included both sports legends and big screen talents. Those who have hosted the ESPN award show include Serena Williams, Stephen Curry, Anthony Mackie, Tracy Morgan, Danica Patrick and Peyton Manning. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week 'Harry Potter' TV Show Cast Guide: Who's Who in Hogwarts? Final Emmy Predictions: Talk Series and Scripted Variety - New Blood Looks to Tackle Late Night Staples
CBC
10-07-2025
- Business
- CBC
Hamilton water workers ratify tentative agreement with City of Hamilton
The near-three-month strike between Hamilton water workers and the City of Hamilton ended Monday when the union and employer reached a tentative agreement. On Wednesday, workers ratified that deal. The agreement will go before City Council for approval on July 16, the City said on its website Wednesday. Greg Hoath, business manager with the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 772, told CBC Hamilton Tuesday he hoped members would approve the deal. Water workers took to the picket line May 14 after negotiations with the city fell through. The workers, who oversee the water purifying process as well as the discharge of waste water, said they wanted to address decades-old concerns. One was the length of time it takes to reach their top pay rate through on-the-job training. The other was a pay gap that left some members earning about $4 less per hour than another group of workers with fewer certifications, workers told CBC Hamilton. On Tuesday, Hoath said that while he could not disclose what's in the tentative agreement, it's "improved from the previous position of the city." "This labour disruption was really over one issue of pay equity or parity," he said. "We are at least going to have the opportunity to address that question and have it answered once and for all." Mayor Andrea Horwath said Tuesday the "deal reflects our city's commitment to fairness, fiscal responsibility and respect for our workers." Both sides say ready to return to work despite tense strike Hoath acknowledged a "fractious" relationship between strikers and the City. Workers disrupted council meetings and Hoath said the city threatened the union, calling their picketing outside transit facilities unlawful. However, he said members won't let hard feelings affect their return to work. "They will go back to work and do their job. This is water and waste water. We're not going to play around with something as important as those services for the public," Hoath said. City manager Marnie Cluckie shared a similar sentiment in an email to CBC Hamilton Tuesday, saying the employer values the workers and "remains committed to fostering a positive, respectful, and collaborative working relationship." Two other groups of strikers in Hamilton also recently reached deals. Members of the Ontario Compensation Employees Union on strike from the Ontario's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board approved a tentative agreement Monday. They had been picketing since May 22. Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 2073 members voted to ratify a new collective agreement with Canadian Hearing Services. They had been on strike since April 28.
Telegraph
01-07-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Why Labour's plan to expose everyone's pay is bad news
When Pimlico Plumbers' staff revealed their salaries to each other for a reality TV show in 2012, it turned things upside had assumed people doing the same jobs would be paid the same, but that wasn't the case at all. The exercise revealed pay discrepancies of up to £9,000. To restore order, managing director Charlie Mullins had to reluctantly agree to foot the bill for pay rises. 'It cost me a few quid once people found out what their colleagues were making. I had to put more money into the wages pot, and we did uncover some huge pay differences between people doing similar jobs. There was even a spectacular resignation from one guy who didn't get a pay rise,' recalls Mullins, who sold the business in 2021 and launched home repairs service WeFix last year. This social experiment may be about to take place in workplaces across Britain. Labour may force employers to publish salary bands, and make pay information available to employees. The idea is that by requiring employers to be more open about pay structures, salary ranges, and progression criteria, it becomes easier to identify and correct inequalities where people are doing the same or similar jobs. But this could have side effects, experts suggest, such as forcing business owners to hand out pay rises they can't afford, sparking resentment among colleagues and even pushing down high earners' salaries. Mullins believes salary transparency laws are really about the Government 'meddling' in how businesses are run. 'I'm all for transparency,' he says. 'But this government has no clue about running a business, so they should leave well alone.' Nearly half of employers now anticipate they will have to stump up for unexpected pay rises as a result of the Government's proposed changes, with 60pc expecting more requests for pay negotiations, according to a survey by HR and financial advisory WTW. Nyree Ambarchian, who runs communications agency Jack & Grace, introduced a transparent pay system in 2022. But she hadn't anticipated that this would lead to the company paying some of its staff more. She had to offer a higher salary to a prospective employee to match her previous one, but that had a knock-on effect. 'It wasn't just that person we needed to worry about, because we already employed somebody at exactly the same level,' she adds. 'So in making that hiring decision, the real cost to us wasn't just the extra that new person was looking for, but also the uplift in an existing member's pay.' Wages getting pushed up like this is an added burden for small businesses that are already feeling a huge crunch. From April this year, employers began paying National Insurance contributions at a higher rate of 15pc, starting at a lower threshold, while the minimum wage for those aged over 21 was increased. Environmental consultancy Tyler Grange introduced a fully transparent salary structure last year for its 85 employees. As a result of the process, the company had to give out a number of additional pay rises, says managing director Jon Berry. 'It was often as an inconsequential result of someone joining us from another organisation or because we'd needed to attract a key recruit within a highly competitive market,' Berry explains. He says that introducing salary transparency cost the business around £30,000. Despite the unscheduled pay rises, Berry believes going transparent has made the recruitment process more streamlined as salary expectations are clear. Current team members know what they need to do to get promoted and what future salaries might look like. In Ambarchian's case, the agency conducts yearly reviews and has funds put aside for when unique situations arise. Mullins says of his experiment: 'At times I wished I'd never given the go-ahead for the project, but things settled down after a few weeks, and I think once everything was out in the open, the company was better for the transparency. People stopped being suspicious of how much their mate at the next desk was making.' Lost talent and lower wages Yet, having transparent salaries can cause confusion and create resentment if bosses don't properly communicate, says Justine Woolf, of Innecto Reward Consulting. For example, an employer can publicise that a role falls into a certain salary bracket, but employees don't always understand why they are paid an exact amount within the band, and are frustrated when they don't move up. 'Say the salary band for a role is £30,000 to £50,000. The market rate for your job might be £35,000, but a high performer in the same band might earn £45,000. Employers don't always clearly explain the difference. This can lead to a feeling of unfairness,' says Woolf. In the US, where 15 of its 50 states have mandated some form of salary disclosure, organisations have lost talent, and wages of some high earners have actually fallen. For example, a law in California introduced in 2010 requiring municipal salaries to be posted online led to a 7pc drop in salaries for top managers, and a 75pc increase in the resignation rate, according to the US National Bureau of Economic Research. For others it could mean their salaries increase at a slower rate. In 2006, Denmark began requiring companies to be transparent about pay bands, leading to a reduction in the gender pay gap – at the expense of salary increases for men. High performers can also be impacted when salary transparency prompts an employer to pay two people a similar rate to avoid conflict, even if one deserves more, according to a study published in Nature Human Behaviour, a journal. 'People could become demotivated if they feel, 'I've put in all that effort, and I've got very little return in terms of internal movement. Am I really valued for my contribution?'' says Woolf. 'And that's when people will start to think about going elsewhere.' Lee Holmes, chief of NFINOX Global, which has transparent salary bands, predicts that the rise of salary transparency will spotlight the disproportionate number of people in the finance industry earning unexplainably high salaries. It could see many of them jump ship to protect those large figures, rather than risk a pay cut. London-based Holmes believes that transparency shouldn't hold genuinely high performers back. Companies which set salary bands and make them known across the company should still reward people based on what they've achieved rather than what a salary band dictates, he says. He has suffered from this himself, he adds. 'I was once doing a job that encompassed four or five different roles, and when I asked for more money to reflect that, I was told that my job title was linked to a certain salary, and that was it.' He left that role not long after. Holmes' observation overall is that it is often the most vocal people who end up on higher pay, whereas those who quietly get on with their job often don't get recognised. 'I do think that once [salary transparency] comes out these people will get found out, and if they do, then great,' he says. 'It creates a better working environment for everyone else.'
RNZ News
30-06-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Community support workers among NZ's lowest paid
They are among New Zealand's lowest paid employees. The wages of home and community support workers, who look after the country's elderly, typically max out about $29 an hour. They also use their own vehicles to travel between jobs and, while they're reimbursed for that, it's at an amount significantly less than IRD recommends for personal vehicle use. The issue was part of a pay equity claim by the female dominated workforce, who consider themselves underpaid in comparison to those dominated by men. That's now off the table after the government changed the law last month. Jimmy Ellingham reports. To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
The Guardian
17-06-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Salary secrets: pay transparency is great – until you hear what your slacker colleague earns
Name: Pay transparency. Age: Merely a twinkle in government ministers' eyes. Appearance: Potentially a bit can of worms-y. You can't have a problem with pay transparency. It's a good thing! It is! It highlights and helps tackle gender, ethnicity, age and disability pay gaps for a start, which is why the UK government is looking at ways to promote more openness around what people earn. They should make nonsensically vague salary info in job ads illegal for starters. Don't tell me it's 'competitive' – tell me if I'll be able to afford to eat. You're in luck – one suggestion is making employers include salary bracket or specific salary in job ads. Others include banning asking candidates about their pay history and making the provision of clear information on pay structures and career progression mandatory. Didn't the EU do something similar recently? Yes, the EU Pay Transparency Directive, which comes into force next year, introduces similar measures – it also bans pay secrecy clauses, which stop employees from discussing their salaries with colleagues. Good stuff. So what is the problem? Well, speaking of discussing what you earn, one of the other measures the UK is considering is 'providing employees with information on their pay level and how their pay compares with those doing the same role or work of equal value'. So? That sounds positive. You know your colleague, Darren? The wastrel who moseys in at five to 10, scrolls through his socials for an hour then disappears to the gents until 12, takes two hours for lunch and leaves at four? Yep, that Darren. Well, imagine finding out he's earning 20 grand more than you? Is he????? I don't know. But what if, under these new proposed rules, you found out that he was? I would go full Godzilla, ripping through the open space screaming, tearing out cables and kicking over bins. You see the problem. There's a certain potential for, let's say, tension, if people find out they're earning less than their colleagues (especially crap ones). But, come on, how likely is it that employers will be forced, or choose, to reveal specific individualised information on who earns exactly what? Admittedly, very unlikely – this is all still theoretical. But look what happened when the BBC published pay bracket information on presenters? All hell broke loose! You mean a scandalous gender pay gap was exposed and addressed? I see your point. But we're funny about money – a 2021 poll found 36% of British people don't even tell their spouses what they earn. Pay transparency provisions are definitely a good thing, but this could get messy. Do say: 'So how much do you earn?' Don't say: '£7,840 more than you and I'm worth every penny, Darren.'
