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People are management's most important asset, and in no other industry is this more true than in retail distribution. Not only is it highly labour intensive but, with the addition of the crucial role played by the consumer, the question of human relations becomes of paramount importance. This special feature is therefore concerned with various aspects of people at work. Firstly, Dr Olive Robinson and Mr John Wallace have written the first of a series of articles dealing with current questions of wage payment and employment in the distributive trades. Following on this Mr M.F. Hall reports on a pilot study, undertaken in a department store, which examines the output of selling staff and assesses their effectiveness. Finally, three writers from the Institute of Manpower Studies (concerned with improving the management of human resources in industry), describe how they set about a study of the manpower situation in distribution, a commission offered them by the DITB.

The 1983 OECD Employment Outlook reported that ‘the rapid expansion of part‐time employment in virtually all member countries is one of the most significant structural shifts occurring in the OECD labour market over the last two decades…in many countries, part‐time employment has continued to grow when full‐time employment has been stagnating or even declining. As the decade progresses, it is apparent that forms of employment different from the traditional full‐time norm are assuming increasing importance, and in all countries part‐time work represents the largest component of this loosely defined ‘flexible workforce’.

The UK's Department of Employment latest Research Paper (No. 43) is entitled “Part‐time employment and sex discrimination legislation in Great Britain” and is written by Olive Robinson and John Wallace.

In the final article of their series dealing with the aspects of wage payments and employment in retail distribution, the authors examine the implications of the 1970 Equal Pay Act on retail distribution and, in particular, how the Government's counter‐inflation policy has affected the situation. They warn that when the full terms of the Act are implemented retail employers may find an unanticipated burden added to their wage bills. This research has been funded by the Social Science Research Council.

In this second of a series of articles dealing with aspects of wage payment and employment in retail distribution, the authors turn their attention to the question of part‐time workers. These have increased substantially in recent years: for women only the proportion of part‐time employment rose from 31% in 1957 to 43% in 1966. The research has been funded by the Social Science Research Council.

The purpose of this article is to examine the extent to which implementation of the Equal Pay Act 1970 in retail distribution has been influenced by the wages regulation orders of the industry's Wages Councils. In concentrating on machinery for determining statutory minimum levels of remuneration (SMR) it is recognised that there are obvious dangers in ignoring the role played by collective bargaining, and of drawing conclusions about pay which are unrelated to total earnings. In particular branches of retailing, notably in co‐operative societies and amongst multiple organisations, pay and other conditions of employment are negotiated almost entirely by the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW). The general image of retail employment nevertheless remains one of low pay. Negotiated pay structures provide minimum rates which are low in comparison with those in most other industries, and the coverage of trade union recognition and negotiation has not achieved a level sufficient to question the need for statutory minimum wages regulation in the industry as a whole. It will be shown that retail Wages Councils place severe restrictions in the way of progress towards equal treatment of men and women by fixing SMRs bearing a minimal relationship to men's total earnings — an argument which may be applied with only slight modification to the functioning of the industry's main collective agreements, in which the lowest‐paid occupations are those held almost entirely by women.

Equal pay legislation has been on the statute book since May 1970 in the form of the Equal Pay Act, due to be fully effective at the end of 1975. In an earlier article the authors discussed problems to be expected in implementing the Equal Pay Act with particular reference to retail distribution. The present article first examines progress toward equal pay on the basis of recent statistics covering basic wage rates and earnings in a wide range of industries and occupations in Britain. Secondly it considers implications of further proposals to raise the status of women through measures intended “to make it unlawful to discriminate on the grounds of sex … in a wide range of activities and situations”, including employment. Finally, in the light of procedures and machinery designed for the enforcement of anti‐discrimination laws, it questions whether the two objectives of equal pay and equal opportunity for women are entirely consistent.

In the third article of this series dealing with aspects of wage payments and employment in retail distribution the authors look at the problems of low pay in this sector. Despite increases this remains well below average, in 1972, for example, only the median weekly earnings of kitchen‐hands, hairdressers and barmaids were lower than that of saleswomen. This research has been funded by the Social Science Research Council.

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”.

Part‐time working has been traditionally associated with poor quality, low skill jobs in the secondary labour market. Explores the expansion of part‐time work into skilled occupations using case studies in nursing and the police. Employees in both services have pay and conditions wholly pro‐rated with full‐time colleagues. However, despite a potentially strong bargaining position in relation to the employer, these part‐timers had not achieved complete equality with full time counterparts. Demonstrates a breaking of the mould of poor quality part‐time jobs showing that better jobs can be worked on a part‐time basis. Concludes, however, that full equality is unlikely to be achieved without strategic intervention at the workplace level.