British government proposing "name and shame" equality list

Great idea but I think such a program in the US would interfere with the love-in Obama is having with the Republicans. I don't know, maybe he could pull it off if he let the GOP segregate the schools again in the south, because letting them have what they want is most important because they've been so right about everything. At least there's someone out there looking into progressive policies so the US can follow progress from afar, which is almost the same thing. Who really wants change from the failed policies and same old people that brought us to where we are anyway? Change and progress are overrated anyway.

Companies could be "named and shamed" in league tables revealing pay inequalities between male and female employees under government plans to tackle the gender pay gap, the Guardian can reveal.

The government's equalities office is drawing up an amendment to the equality bill that would force companies to publish figures in annual accounts showing the number of men and women in particular pay bands. The bill is due to be published early this year.

Business leaders reacted angrily to the proposal. The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) complained that forcing companies to produce "meaningless statistics" would do little to tackle the underlying causes of inequality, while the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said the response was "over-prescriptive".

The minister in charge of the bill, Vera Baird, the solicitor general, is understood to be sympathetic to the scheme following criticism that the existing requirement for public sector bodies to report on gender pay inequalities did not go far enough to close the pay gap.

Men are paid 17.1% more than women for full-time work, according to government figures published in November. In part-time wages, the gender gap is 36.6%, according to the Office of National Statistics. Over a lifetime, that disparity means that women in full-time employment will be paid £369,000 less than their male counterparts, the EHRC estimated.

Separate research by Cranfield Business School showed the number of women holding executive directorships in FTSE 100 companies fell in 2007 to the lowest level for nine years. Only three of Britain's top companies have female chief executives.