EQUAL PAY

Equal Pay

Equal Pay

Introduction

“The Equal Pay Act of 1970” was launched by UK Parliament to stop discrimination as regards to terms and conditions of employment between women and men. To what extent have changes in legislation achieved equality in the labour market? With reference to 'gender'?In this essay I will be examining the concept of equal opportunities in relation to the diverse work force in Britain. This essay will develop a comprehension and recognition of the anti- discriminatory legislations, the implementation of this and the effectiveness of it within the labour market: it will also principally concentrate on gender inequalities in employment.

There are employers that differentiate in the treatment between male and female in workplace is called gender discrimination, and the law prohibits it. According to Giddens “ employer that treats a women with assertive personality in a different manner than if she had been a man is guilty of sex discrimination”. (P.158)Both men and women employees should be treated equally in the workplace or otherwise the employer will be penalised and the law will take its process.

Equal Pay Act 1970

The Equal Pay Act 1970 is an Act of the United Kingdom Parliament which prohibits any less favourable treatment between men and women in terms of pay and conditions of employment. It came into force on 29 December 1975. The term pay is interpreted in a broad sense to include, on top of wages, things like holidays, pension rights, company perks and some kinds of bonuses. The legislation has been amended on a number of recent occasions to incorporate a simplified approach under European Union law that is common to all member states.

The act has been criticised as it fails to address the gap between ethnic minorities (Black and Asian) and white workers. The gap between ethnic minorities and white workers is much higher than that of men and women.

For an employee to claim under this Act they must prove one of the following:

* That the work done by the claimant is the same, or broadly the same, as the other employee.

* That the work done by the claimant is of equal value to that of the other employee.

* That the work done by the claimant is rated (by a job evaluation study) the same as that of the other employee.

Once the employee has established that they are employed on “equal work” with their comparator then they are entitled to “equal pay” unless the employer proves that the difference in pay is genuinely due to a material factor which is not the difference in gender.

Single Status

In 1997, trades unions negotiated Single Status job evaluation, hoping that this would enforce the Equal Pay Act without needing to take numerous pay claims to industrial tribunal. Single Status was intended to establish whether jobs were of equal value, and bring in a pay model which would remove the need for equal pay claims. Jobs which had previously been classed as manual or administrative/clerical would be brought together under one payscale and one set of ...