Employer Opposition

In an attempt to get round the provisions of the Equal Pay Act, some employers have changed the classification of their women employees' jobs.

Jobs are being broken down into various "skills" and women are being paid according to the number of "skills" they acquire. For example in the retail trade, some women are being paid for having such "skills" as "good customer relations" and being "co-operative with other staff".

Job classification is being used not to encourage women workers to acquire greater skills but to ensure that they can never reach the same rates of pay as men. This method of job classification is shown to be ridiculous by the fact that men are paid actual or gross rates, not a certain rate for each skill they have acquired. There is no such thing, for example, as 2/3rd qualified or has no skills in boxing work.

The equal pay struggle has also shown up the existence of strong male prejudice against women workers achieving the rate of pay that men would get for doing their jobs. As Sandra McCallum of the Working Women's Alliance told the seminar, this prejudice will not be combatted by men and women fighting each other, but by men who believe in the need for equal pay educating other men. Clearly the trade union movement can do a great deal in carrying out such education in an organised and concerted fashion.