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Examines the debate (1891‐1923) concerning whether women should receive equal pay for equal work and whether they should have equal employment opportunities. Addresses the issues surrounding equal employment opportunities for women, whether women′s work performance was equal to that of men, the question of equal pay and, finally, the debate over equal pay vs equal job opportunity.

Legislation is being prepared in both Canada and the USA to force a new social reality on the workplace in which pay systems will be made equitable. The vehicle will be job evaluation. This article details, in practical terms, how job evaluation techniques can be used as a means of social‐reorientation towards a new era of industrial relations.

An understanding of the relationship between male and female wages in Australia can best be understood by examining the decisions of tribunals in the industrial arena. The decisions of the tribunals have reduced the gap between male and female earnings, however, they have not yet been able to provide for pay equity. A gap still exists which cannot be explained through differences in the human capital of the male and female workforces. At one level this gap can be explained in terms of the impact of differences in the occupational and industrial distribution of the male and female workforces, their hours of work and positions in organisational hierarchies. However, this explanation is too superficial, being unable to explain why these differences in employment behaviour occur. Neither is it able to explain the ways in which women's wages are influenced by social values, tribunal doctrines and practices, the activities of trade unions and policies in the broader social and political arena.

Equal Pay—Objectives and Achievement Equal pay for women has a history of policy declarations dating back in Great Britain to the resolution of the Trades Union Congress in 1888: “That in the opinion of this Congress it is desirable, in the interests of both men and women, that in trades where women do the same work as men, they shall receive the same pay.” On an international level the International Labour Organisation included the concept of “equal remuneration for work of equal value” in its constitution adopted in 1919, reiterating the principle in Convention 100 in 1951, which was not however ratified by this country until 1971, one year after the passage of the Equal Pay Act. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 states that “everyone, without distinction, has the right to equal pay for equal work”, with a more precise definition in its 1967 Declation on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, “that all appropriate measures shall be taken to ensure to women,… the right to equal remuneration with men and to equality of treatment in respect of work of equal value”. In contrast, under Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome member states of the European Economic Community are required to “ensure and subsequently maintain the application of the principle that men and women should receive equal pay for equal work”.

Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence down into manageable chunks, covering: age discrimination in the workplace; discrimination against African‐Americans; sex discrimination in the workplace; same sex sexual harassment; how to investigate and prove disability discrimination; sexual harassment in the military; when the main US job‐discrimination law applies to small companies; how to investigate and prove racial discrimination; developments concerning race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; developments concerning discrimination against workers with HIV or AIDS; developments concerning discrimination based on refusal of family care leave; developments concerning discrimination against gay or lesbian employees; developments concerning discrimination based on colour; how to investigate and prove discrimination concerning based on colour; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; using statistics in employment discrimination cases; race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning gender discrimination in the workplace; discrimination in Japanese organizations in America; discrimination in the entertainment industry; discrimination in the utility industry; understanding and effectively managing national origin discrimination; how to investigate and prove hiring discrimination based on colour; and, finally, how to investigate sexual harassment in the workplace.

In order to succeed in an action under the Equal Pay Act 1970, should the woman and the man be employed by the same employer on like work at the same time or would the woman still be covered by the Act if she were employed on like work in succession to the man? This is the question which had to be solved in Macarthys Ltd v. Smith. Unfortunately it was not. Their Lordships interpreted the relevant section in different ways and since Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome was also subject to different interpretations, the case has been referred to the European Court of Justice.

The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides:

This article is a marginally shortened version of Supplement No. 15 to Women in Europe. The European Community answers a series of 50 questions relating to women and employment.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse an example of non-decision making in the Nordic tripartite policy process, namely, the reform of the Finnish gender equality legislation and the law for equal pay comparisons.

The paper uses non-decision making as a conceptual framework for qualitative analysis of the documentation of the working group that drafted the law for equal pay comparisons. The analysis focuses on the strategic responses used by the participants in order to defend the status quo and resist change in legislation.

The key findings are that the suggested law for conducting equal pay comparisons as part of gender equality planning in Finnish organisations changed dramatically in the tripartite policy process. Employer organisations successfully prevented the most relevant features from being implemented in the reformed law.

The findings of this research indicate that there is a need for more research on the tripartite policy process and its implication on developing policy.

This paper shows what kind of power employer and employee organisations use in Finnish policy making. As a result, the reformed gender equality legislation is a compromise reflecting the vested interests of different stakeholders. The findings highlight the challenges of developing policy in tripartite policy process.

The tripartite policy process and its implications have rarely been studied. The value of this paper lies in both originality of the topic and approach, and the societal importance of the findings.

If equal pay for equal work were already the rule, it would be difficult to adduce reasoned arguments for paying different remuneration for people doing the same work alongside one another, once family responsibilities had been covered by social security legislation. In the Civil Service and among employers and owners of businesses and professional practices it is the rule, but for employees a different system applies. It is over eighty years since the TUC first demanded equal pay for equal work and now that the Equal Pay Act of 1970 is on the statute book, it might be thought that the battle is won. But the Act will slumber until the end of 1975 unless information reaching him can spur the Minister to invoke his powers under the Act and require earlier but partial implementation. The subject, like the poor, continues to be with us; many women will find that when the Act does become fully operative they will gain nothing, for equal pay as a concept is based on comparability within an organisation (or associated ones) and at least 700 000 are estimated to be unaffected by it. Also, one reason why other women who could do similar work to that of more highly paid male colleagues may be unable to claim equal pay is because they lack the necessary training; so they will continue to be under‐used as far as their potentialities are concerned. The poor record of training of women is a severe indictment of the multi‐million pound ITB system and of the costly (and equally paid) Department of Employment which purports to supervise it.