LONDON (UK) – Amid global protests over the issue of race, a women’s collective in the UK has urged Britain’s firms to hire more women of colour, ensure better pay and promote them.
Ann Cairns, global chairperson of 30% Club, said its mission was to see women in at least 30% of corporate board seats in the UK.
She said the club wishes to see 175 women of colour handling executive roles in the country’s biggest firms by 2023.
“The glass ceiling is still pervasive, and women of colour face some of the greatest hurdles of all,” she said.
“We just haven’t seen Black people or people of colour really finding it easy to climb the corporate ladder.”
According to Hampton-Alexander Review, women hold 32% of board seats in Britain’s top 350 publicly traded companies.
The number of UK board members belonging to Black, Asian and minority groups is about 7% while 3% constitute chairs, chief executives and finance directors, said a 2019 Green Park study.
“Quite honestly, the wage gap between a top-performing white man and a woman of colour is massive. You have a double jeopardy going on, being both a woman and a woman of colour,” she said.
The UK government last month launched a commission to look into racial disparity. It said it was exploring all possible legal amendments making it mandatory for firms to reveal their payroll information based on ethnicity.
(Photos syndicated via Reuters)
This story has been edited by BH staff and is published from a syndicated field