On the threshold of genderquake?

30 years of the Equal Pay Act

On the threshold of genderquake?

THIRTY YEARS after the Equal Pay and Sex Discrimination Acts, ELAINE
BRUNSKILL looks at what impact they have had on working-class women’s
lives.

DEMOS, AN ‘independent think tank’, suggests: "Women have come a long
way in the last two decades." They cite Britain having its first woman
prime minister, the appointment of the first woman chief executive of a
FTSE top hundred company, alongside "the steady advances" made by
working women.

The implementation of the Equal Pay and Sex Discrimination Acts in
1975 have brought about some progress. In 2003, for the first time ever,
more women than men qualified as barristers.

Recent recruitment figures for female trainee solicitors and female
medical students outnumber their male counterparts by almost two to one.
More women than men are now winning places on the civil service
fast-track promotion programme.

But, are these ‘steady advances’ illustrations of women being on the
threshold of what some feminists call a ‘genderquake’? Most women would
agree it is too soon to be breaking out the bubbly. Women now make up
more than half of the workforce and are undoubtedly an essential part of
the economy. Yet thirty years after the introduction of the Equal Pay
Act women earn on average nearly 20% less than men

Low pay

According to the Fawcett Society, a lifetime of the gender pay gap
can cost a mid-skilled, childless woman a whopping £250,000. The report
goes on to explain that almost 50% of women have a gross individual
income of less than £100 a week, compared to just over 20% of men.

Women frequently hide their poverty, often denying themselves food in
order to ensure their families are protected. Many of these women are
likely to experience unrelenting poverty. 22% of women, compared to 14%
of men, have persistently low incomes. Living in persistent poverty has
a cumulative effect, denying women the prospect of building up savings,
even necessities such as decent clothing and household goods.

Whilst it is true that a layer of more educated, middle-class women
have benefited from economic and social change – though even they can
hit a ‘glass ceiling’ – the majority of working-class women find they
are ‘stuck to the floor of low pay’. Traditional women’s jobs, known as
the four C’s, cleaning, caring, catering and cash registers are
notoriously low paid.

Because certain work is segregated on gender lines, it has been
possible for employers to pay women lower wages. In order to try and cut
across this anomaly, an amendment to the Equal Pay Acts in 1983 stated
that women should receive equal pay for work of equal value. From the
onset bosses whinged that any pay surveys or gender audits should not be
compulsory.

New Labour professes to be committed to promoting equal pay for work
of equal value across the gender divide. However, the government’s own
figures show female civil servants earn 25% less than their male
counterparts. In 2003 the civil service conducted an equal pay review,
but the outcome of this review was the widening of the pay gap! In 2003
the average pay for female civil servants was 78.1% of male civil
servants, by last year their average pay had decreased to 75%.

What chance do women in the private sector have if the government’s
own workforce is seeing growing inequality? The Socialist Party demands
that all gender pay audits are undertaken in conjunction with trade
unions.

Equal value

IN 2001, eighteen years after the 1983 amendment to the Equal Pay
Act, The Guardian reported that domestic cleaners working in a Carlisle
hospital were paid £7,505 a year for a 39-hour week. In the main this
work entailed cleaning floors. In the same hospital other cleaners who
washed walls were paid £9,995 for a 37-hour week. The lower paid work
was done by women, and the higher paid jobs by men.

Earlier this year UNISON took the Cumbria NHS Trust to court and a
settlement was struck. Alongside domestic cleaners, women who were
working in jobs such as nursing, clerical assistants, sewing machinists
and telephonists will be substantially compensated for years of
inequality.

Their legal case was based on the fact that despite the tasks they
performed being different to their male colleagues; the work was of
equal value.

As socialists we welcome legal victories such as these. However, we
also highlight the importance of linking the issue of equal pay to the
broader class issue of low pay. For example, local councils who have
been taken to court over equal pay claims have threatened to lower the
wages of their male employees.

The director of negotiations for the Employers’ Organisations for
Local Government stated that to "secure equality" you can "reduce the
men’s pay down to the women’s pay." (Guardian 19 July 2004)

Capitalism has no qualms regarding sharing the misery of low pay
across the gender divide. In order to counter this, trade unions must be
prepared to take industrial action alongside legal action.

Women are also faced with the problem of having to bear the brunt of
family responsibilities. Traditionally capitalism has defined a woman’s
role as within the family home; doing the housework and bringing up the
next generation of workers. In various respects things have moved on.
Whereas in 1981 only 24% of women returned to work within one year of
having a child, by 2001 that figure had increased to 67%.

However, stepping out of the labour market, even for a short period,
means that many women face lower wages and job prospects when they
return.

According to the Equal Opportunities Commission, (EOC) only 47% of
women return to the same employer after maternity leave.

Of those who do, one in five go back to a lower grade. Emerging
research by the EOC suggests around 20% of women face dismissal or
financial loss as a result of their pregnancy.

Another problem facing women is the lack of help available from local
authorities. When New Labour was first elected in 1997 Gordon Brown
promised to adhere to the Tory’s budget for the first three years of
office. In order to achieve this ‘promise’ Blair and Brown embraced
privatisation.

Creeping privatisation of local services has meant women are also
increasingly having to pay increased charges for nursery provision and
having to care for elderly or sick relatives.

Work / life balance

IN ORDER that women can try to juggle their work and family
responsibilities many choose flexible work patterns such as part-time
work. Capitalism depicts this trend as being mutually beneficial,
however the reality is usually far from ideal.

In 2003 the predominantly female British Airways check-out staff
walked out of Heathrow, having been threatened with changes in their
shift patterns and split shifts. These changes were to be forced through
without any consultation with trade unions, and would have made
organising childcare impossible.

The 42% of working women who ‘choose’ to work part-time in order to
maintain a work/life balance pay the price financially.

According to the Women and Work Commission women working part time on
average earn 33.7% less than women in full-time employment.

Almost one in four part-time women workers are sales assistants,
cleaners, or care assistants. All these jobs are undervalued and
underpaid.

Last September The Guardian reported that 43% of all working women
earned less than £5 an hour. The recent paltry increase in the minimum
wage will have done little to seriously alleviate their living
conditions.

We call on unions to fight for their current minimum wage demands as
a stepping stone towards £8/hour. Such an increase would have an
immediate impact on improving the living standards of the lowest-paid
workers and closing the agenda pay gap. We also campaign for free,
flexible, publicly funded childcare for everyone who wants it.

Struggle for socialism

As socialists we do not see men as the source of women’s inequality.
Working-class men are also struggling to survive under capitalism.

Conversely some women are doing very well. According to the Centre
for Economics and Business Research there are around 25% more women
millionaires aged 18 to 24 than men. No doubt in order to generate
profit, such business women will be equally happy exploiting both male
and female workers.

The EOC, the regulating body for the Equal Pay and Sex Discrimination
Acts, suggests: "While there is never an excuse for law breaking,
existing legislation is not stopping discrimination".

Socialists and working-class women stuck in dead-end jobs can see
that as a tool against inequality the EOC has proven itself as much use
as a chocolate chisel.

Thirty years after the introduction of Acts that were to end
discrimination, we don’t just need new legislation, we need an
alternative that will tackle the fundamental causes of inequality and
discrimination which are rooted in the capitalist system.

Socialism would entail taking economic control away from the
capitalist class and replacing it with democratic public ownership under
workers’ control.

This would enable society to be democratically organised to meet
people’s needs rather than maximising profits.

Resources would be freed up in order that all workers, both male and
female, could receive a living wage. Childcare would no longer solely be
the responsibility of individual women, or even families, but of society
as a whole.

Based on economic cooperation and equality, socialism would lay the
basis for the ending of all forms of inequality and discrimination.


Gender gap – a lifetime of inequality

A TUC report, Young at Heart? details how the entrenched pay gap
between men and women affects young people from their very first day at
work. From the outset people as young as 16 are going for occupations
along gender lines.

For example, the public sector accounts for more than 10% of the
employment of young women, against only 4% of young men. Conversely, 10%
of young men are employed in construction, compared to just 1% of young
women (figures are based on 16-17 year olds not in full-time education).

A female teenager, in her very first job, will on average earn 16%
less than her male counterparts, blowing apart the myth that women
taking time out to have children is the only cause of lower pay. Even
women who have been to university will on average be earning 15% less
within five years of their graduation.

Segregation begins in school where girls are still not given enough
encouragement to try non-traditional work. The EOC’s report, Unlocking
the Potential, points out that many female school students are given
work experience placements in childcare, even though they do not want to
work in childcare! Furthermore, at least 36% of young women would have
preferred to try a work placement which was in work usually regarded as
‘men’s work’.

For many women, a lifetime of low pay exposes them to poverty in old
age. According to the government’s own figures, the gap between retired
men and women is an abyss, with women receiving an income of only 37% of
that of equivalent men.

In a joint campaign, Age Concern and The Fawcett Society warn that
the pension system is "littered with obstacles for women". Whilst 78% of
newly retired men have a full basic pension, only 16% of women do.
Almost a quarter of female single pensioners live in poverty, and twice
as many older women than men are dependent on the means-tested minimum
income guarantee.


Militant action for equal pay

THE LATE sixties and early seventies saw the emergence of
working-class women taking militant action for equal pay and against sex
discrimination. The strike by women sewing machinists at Ford’s Dagenham
plant in June 1968 played a crucial role in women’s battle for equal
pay.

Ford management had refused to acknowledge the skilled nature of the
machinists, regarding it as ‘women’s work’. The women demanded that they
should be re-graded and given parity with skilled men. Their victory,
although only partial, raised their pay to 92% of the men’s rate. This
inspired many women struggling for equal pay.

Many trade unions consequently paid lip service to the fight for
equal pay in their recruitment campaigns, and women streamed in as new
members. However, trade union officials who were dragging their feet
over the issue of equal pay increasingly exasperated women organised in
trade unions.

The Labour government placed the Equal Pay Act on the statute book in
May 1970. Any women who thought this Act would result in equal pay
quickly had their hopes dashed, as bosses were given five years to
comply with the law. Employers used this time to try and scupper the
implementation of equal pay.

Books, such as The Employers’ Guide to Equal Pay, were made available
to bosses giving them handy tips on how to get around the Act.
Consequently, men would be given titles such as ‘trainee manager’,
whereas women doing the same job would be known by the more modest label
of ‘assistant’.

As more working-class women were drawn into the battle for equal pay,
many realised that in order to improve their living standards and
working conditions it would be necessary to have more than Equal Pay and
Sex Discrimination Acts.

Then, even more than now, discrimination against women was woven into
the very fabric of capitalist society. This was an era in which women
couldn’t even have a hysterectomy without her husband’s consent, and
couldn’t sign a hire purchase agreement unless she had a male guarantor.

For women to achieve equal pay it would be necessary to use
legislation as a weapon in their battle. However, the main thrust of the
struggle would need to be increased militancy in the workplace, linked
to the struggle for socialism.

For further reading see: Women Workers and The Trade Unions by Sarah
Boston. (Unfortunately out of print but may be available in libraries.)


Further reading on women’s struggles:

Socialist Party Women’s Pack: Fighting for Women – Rights and
Socialism. £2.50

One Hand Tied Behind Us: Worker Suffragettes Movement, by Jill Liddington and Jill Norton £10.95

Women and the Family, by Leon Trotsky £8.00

The Emancipation of Women – from Lenin’s Writings. Preface by Krupskaya and Appendix by Clara Zetkin. £6.95

The Rising of the Women (USA Class struggles 1880-1917) by Meredith
Tax (Bargain) £7.00

Please add 10% for post and packing.

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