Secrecy about pay rates is helping to maintain a huge gap between the salaries of men and women.
Most firms have no plans to check if they are paying women fairly and more than one in five employers do not allow their staff to share information about pay rates, according to research published yesterday.
The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) said the secrecy was helping to maintain the 19 per cent gap between the pay of men and women.
The group urged companies to check pay systems to make sure there was no bias against women, in line with a recommendation from an EOC task force two years ago, which was backed by the Government.
Julie Mellor, chairwoman of the EOC, said the level of complacency and secrecy uncovered by the research was "staggering".
She said: "Employers have a crucial role to play in tackling unequal pay."
Pay was still a "taboo subject" in many organisations.
Ms Mellor said: "British employers have to tackle this culture of secrecy if we are ever going to see the gap between women's and men's pay finally closed."
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