‘Not good enough’ says union after RTÉ reports gender pay gap of 13%

RTÉ has reported a median gender pay gap of just over 13 per cent and an average gap of 11.55 per cent for 2022 as it admitted that “clearly, there is more to do” on gender equality at the organisation.

The State-owned broadcaster said the gap was driven by the under-representation of women in senior roles and the impact of more men than women receiving overtime or premium pay rates.

In response, the Dublin broadcasting branch of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) said it was dismayed to see the gender pay gap in RTÉ was so high, adding that it was also “far worse” than the broadcaster had claimed in the last number of years. It also said it was concerned that 60 per cent of people earning more than €90,000 at RTÉ were men.

“That’s not good enough,” it said as it urged RTÉ management to “engage meaningfully and urgently” with an equality working group established in 2017.

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“RTÉ says in its report that its aim is to lower the gender pay gap, but the ‘actions’ it lists as part of this effort are woefully inadequate.”

RTÉ's publication of its gender pay gap report follows the introduction of legislation earlier this year requiring employers with 250 or more employees to publish details of how they pay men and how they pay women, according to certain metrics. The median pay gap refers to how much a female employee at the midpoint of all female hourly wages is paid compared with a male employee at the midpoint of all male hourly wages.

While some State-owned bodies voluntarily published pay-gap reports before 2022, this is RTÉ's first such report and it was prepared by consultancy firm Willis Towers Watson.

RTÉ said part of its gender pay gap was the result of men in roles that are eligible for overtime being more likely to do overtime hours and receive higher pay rates for this work.

When roles with overtime are excluded from the calculations, it has a mean gender pay gap of 10 per cent and a median gap of 6.79 per cent.

The public-service broadcaster also said that in part-time roles it had a 17 per cent median gender pay gap in favour of women, known as a negative pay gap, and that this showed that flexible working policies in RTÉ were supporting women and were possible “for all levels of seniority”.

It said gender had no impact on pay where men and women are employed in the same roles.

“Gender balance within RTÉ's overall workforce, across roles and output, continues to be a high priority for the organisation and RTÉ is committed to being a fair, flexible and inclusive employer that truly reflects the diversity of Ireland today,” said RTÉ director-general Dee Forbes.

“The work that has gone into this report has been challenging due to the complexity of our organisational structure, which currently has over 160 different grades,” she said.

“We are working with Willis Towers Watson on a full evaluation of the role and grading structure in RTÉ, the outputs of which will help inform decisions going forward as we develop a job and career framework that will create clarity and transparency on how our employees can develop their career journey in RTÉ.”

But the union said this process was “likely to take years” and did not promise to address barriers to gender equality.

Of RTÉ's 1,871 employees as of June 2022, 52 per cent are male.

While roles with eligibility for paid overtime – about a third of the total roles at RTÉ – have an even gender split across the organisation, the data indicates a ratio in favour of men working overtime hours in this group, RTÉ said.

It said it was “committed to seeking out ways to improve gender representation in jobs where this may occur”.

Men are more likely to be represented among senior levels of RTÉ's operations staff, which is the area where overtime payments tend to be available. In the two-thirds of roles not eligible for overtime, men were also better represented at senior levels, while among management grades, the split was 56 per cent male and 44 per cent female.

The median gender pay gap was at its highest in operations at 17.7 per cent, with the gap standing at 8.7 per cent for content staff, 5.9 per cent for commercial staff, 5.7 per cent for news and current affairs and 1.9 per cent for its audiences, channels and marketing division.

“Clearly, there is more to do to create greater gender representation across roles traditionally associated with males and women and to ensure equal gender representation at senior levels within the organisation,” said Ms Forbes.

“RTÉ's aim is to lower the gender pay gap we currently have, and we will work to address the challenges in rapidly changing our workforce to better reflect gender across all career paths.”