Up the European Union (Male and Female Pay Differentials)

Member Name: samantha

Product:	Male and Female Pay Differentials
Date:	05/08/01 (21 review reads)
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I'm going to tell you a story......

Once upon a time there was an institution called the EEC, the European Economic Community. The member states all lived relatively happily together, pointing out one another’s faults and attempting to harmonise certain laws, particularly those for trade in the hope that we could all live merrily and prosperously together.

But then.....

One day one nation state realised that the English had a very strange method of paying it's female workers less then it's male workers - sacre bleu!

They were determined to do something about this dreadful unfairness, the poor women, paid less than their male counterparts for the same work, slogging away in factories, on shop floors for less money.

Why did the contingent think this was so awful - because they are more progressive? they believe heartily in women’s rights?

I think not (well I know not). England was able to trade more cheaply in certain areas because of the fact women were paid a lower wage. Low and behold the Equal Pay Directive was borne. (and the EEC changed it's name to the much more catchy EC)

And you thought they did it out of the kindness of their hearts and the belief in equal rights for women! It also brought in factors more complex than this but, after all competition is an important part of society (for that read money)

Still one very strange loophole exists – hold your breath this is ridiculously complex..

Indirectly discriminatory measures by an employer can be justified if

They correspond to a real need of the business
They are appropriate to achieve the objective pursued
They are necessary to achieve that objective

(i.e. they are proportionate)

All this legalese stems from a glut of cases on part time workers. Part time workers are more often female as the women (don’t hit me but it’s generally true) take on m
ore of the household and child looking after responsibilities than the men. Therefore any practises that differentiate between part time and full time workers broadly differentiate between male workers and female workers.

This is illustrated in the Jenkins case were part time workers were paid less than full time workers and the part time workers were mainly female. This was held not to be contrary to article 119 (equal pay) IF the difference was ‘attributable to factors which are objectively justified and are in no way related to discrimination on the grounds of sex’

Confused? I am – womens wages are still 18 percent lower than mens (see equal pay task force), part time work, discrimination and many other factors still effect the amount that women are paid.

My aim with this weird commentary was to point out that equal pay is not as easy a thing to enforce as many people think it is. The law is complex, it is not so straightforward as to say ‘ equal pay for equal work’ – the judges love getting there heads stuck into some complex commentary, employers will use every loophole they can to make there business more competitive and women are still more likely to take on part time jobs.

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