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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:

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.

This monograph considers a further set of state and statutory functions which are connected with collective bargaining and to examine whether or not there effectively existed, or exists, directly and indirectly, encouragement for the promotion of collective bargaining.

The government published its long awaited Wages Bill on 31st January 1986. Amongst its more important aims it proposes to make fundamental changes to the wages council system the long term effect of which will result in the eventual abolition of wages councils. At this stage however the proposal has fallen short of total abolition of wages councils; it proposes to simplify the law relating to payment of wages and to repeal a significant amount of connected but archaic legislation; it aims at de‐regulating the field of wage payment by repealing some thirteen Acts, twenty Orders and parts of legislation; and finally the proposals aim at abolishing payment of redundancy rebates to all employers with ten or more employees. The raison d'etre of this proposed legislation is, in the words of Kenneth Clarke, when introducing the Bill “….to creat new job opportunities, particularly for young people …. remove out of date restrictions that restrain the ability of businesses to develop and to offer new jobs. The law on wages that we are replacing goes back to Victorian and Edwardian times and reflects historical social conditions. This Bill will make it easier to employ people under modern conditions and will remove the over‐regulation and rigidity of the present system.”

The TUC is opposed to the decision by the British Government to abolish wages councils, which if successful will worsen the pay and conditions of the 2.6 million workers covered by them, and many other low paid workers who use the rates set as reference points. Drawing on theoretical literature and empirical research, explores the arguments for and against abolition and discusses the case for a statutory national minimum wage. Concludes by arguing that the case for abolition is far from proven on economic and social grounds, and that the introduction of a statutory national minimum wage, combined with other active labour market intervention by the Government, is needed to overcome the problem of low pay.

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.

One of the last functions the Commission on Industrial Relations performed before it was wound up towards the end of last year was to produce a report on wage determination in the retail distribution sector. Because of the CIR's dissolution, the report received remarkably little publicity. This was a pity, since it was the culmination of some two years' work, in consultation with representatives from over 50 employers' associations, several trade unions and other spokesmen from the industry. In addition it contains the results of a postal survey of over 2,500 retail establishments and an earnings survey of 13,500 employees — a great deal of original data. Ivor Williams worked for the CIR and took a prominent part in the preparation of the report. In this article he examines the structure and effectiveness of retail wages councils, and in particular the report's recommendation that a revised form of wages council should be retained.

The government has indicated that it wishes to abolish wages councils. So long as the UK ratifies the International Labour Organisation Convention, it is committed to the maintenance of low pay machinery in poorly paid industries, but it could deratify and abolition could take place in 1986. The two retail councils are the largest of the wages councils. Nobody pretends they function effectively. Small retailers claim that they cannot afford the minimum rates fixed by the councils, while some large companies assert that the council's recommended increases have a knock‐on effect on their own collective bargaining arrangements. But in spite of the increases in recent years, the current highest minimum rate in retailing is still 18% below what the Council of Europe described in 1983 as the “decency threshold”. If the councils are to be retained, clearly reform is needed. There is evidence of an alarming level of underpayment, and the “policing” system faces acute difficulties — not least a reduction of one‐third in the number of inspectors. In this special feature, Susan Shaw examines the arguments for abolition, retention, or reform.

Knight's Industrial Law Reports goes into a new style and format as Managerial Law This issue of KILR is restyled Managerial Law and it now appears on a continuous updating basis rather than as a monthly routine affair.

Presents a theoretical approach to analysing the effects of minimum wages on employment which is intended to conform more with the functioning of actual labour markets than do other popular models traditionally used to analyse the likely effects of minimum wages on employment. The model has the desirable property of not only allowing for the negative effect predicted by conventional models, but also permiting a non‐negative impact which is consistent with several recent empirical pieces of work. Examines the employment effects of the industry‐level system of minimum wages which operated in the UK until September 1993. Results reported are not in line with the orthodox model as they suggest a neutral or positive impact of Wages Council minimum wages on employment between 1978 and 1990.