Generating Equality? Equal Pay, Decentralization and the Electricity Supply Industry

Abstract

Despite the existence of effective equal pay legislation in the UK since 1975 aimed at eradicating pay discrimination, women are still in receipt of only 79.5 per cent of the hourly earnings received by men (EOR 1994b). Whitehouse (1992) claims that a centralized collective bargaining model is more likely to lead to equality for women in the labour market than a liberalized individualistic model. The model was tested at an aggregated level for 13 OECD countries. This article provides a case study which charts a trade union claim for equal pay over a period often years (1984–94), which may be seen as an examination of the Whitehouse proposition at a disaggregated level. The paper highlights the barriers to equality bargaining and analyses the case study to identify the criteria necessary for achieving equality.

Union Workers, Union Work: A Profile of Paid Union Officers in the United Kingdom

“…There is a tendency, however, for officers who are involved in bargaining on equal pay, part-time work and work-life balance to have responsibility for multi-employer negotiations. This association between equality bargaining and centralized bargaining structures has been noted in other research (Colling and Dickens 1998;Gilbert and Secker 1995) and may reflect the fact that it is easier to secure a link between central union policy on equality and negotiations where bargaining is centralized. In other words, articulation is facilitated by centralized bargaining structures.…”

New initiative, old problem: classroom assistants and the under‐valuation of women's work

“…It is ironic that, in this instance, the implementation of the single status agreement, designed at least in part to address the problem of unequal pay, created an obstacle to its achievement (cf. Collings and Dickens, 1998; Gilbert and Secker, 1995).…”

“…One such study by Heery (2006) proposes that it is not just the presence of trade unions or women representatives that makes a difference; membership voice, officer choice and institutional opportunity are influencing characteristics in officers reportedly bringing equal pay to the bargaining table. There are examples of trade unions voicing their members' equality rights (Collings and Dickens, 1998; Gilbert and Secker, 1995; Hart, 2002a) but obstacles either hampered negotiations or led to changing bargaining agendas. Hart (2002b) asserts that the prerequisites for effective equality bargaining in Canada included knowledgeable and committed trade unions and use of feminist networks.…”

Deregulation and Women's Employment: The Diverse Experiences of Women in Britain

“…Indeed at least one trade union is said to have been more successful in pursuing equality claims in the new, privatized decentralized utility than in the old nationalized entity (Gilbert and Secker 1995).…”