Rediscovering the collective application of the Equal Pay Act

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this article is to examine the proposal adopted by the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) that employers undertaking an equal pay review should be permitted a ''protected period'' during which its employees would be prohibited from taking equal pay claims to law. This proposal is considered against recent collective agreements in local government and National Health Service, and where equal pay claims have been made by employees either with the support of the unions that are party to the collective agreement or more critically with external legal support. Design/methodology/approach -Information is drawn from the EOC, from employer and trade union sources, and decisions of the employment tribunals and courts. Findings -The outcome of the unstructured mix of collective bargaining and litigation shows a pattern of delay, uncertainty, added conflict between involved parties and pressure, making resource adjustments that initially were to be avoided.Research limitations/implications -The research has been undertaken as the collective agreements are being implemented. As the initial hearings of claims are not complete and there are opportunities for appeals against initial judgments, the descriptions here are unlikely to provide a settled account. Originality/value -The EOC proposal is given support but shown to need further institutional support. In that regard the opportunity is taken to consider a possible alternative form of adjudication of ''collective'' equal pay issues. It is proposed to facilitate an extended version of a former jurisdiction of the Central Arbitration Committee.

The Good, the Not So Good and the Ugly: Gender Equality, Equal Pay and Austerity in English Local Government

“…The agreement was intended to harmonize the pay and conditions between manual and clerical grades in local government. The requirement to undertake job evaluation schemes to facilitate harmonisation, however, uncovered extensive and endemic gendered pay inequality (Rowbottom, 2007). Unlike similar agreements in other parts of the public sector, the SSA was not supported by additional funding from central government and therefore was estimated to represent an unbudgeted cost of £5 billion pounds to local government employers (Keter, 2009).…”

“…1 The GED was hailed as 'The biggest change in sex equality legislation in thirty years, since the introduction of the Sex Discrimination Act itself' (EOC, 2006: 2) and was the last major initiative of the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) before it was subsumed into the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). At the same time there was a major collective agreement between the three main public sector unions and local government employers to introduce equality proofed pay structures as part of the Single Status Agreement (SSA), on-going since 1997 (Conley, 2014;McLaughlin, 2014;Oliver et al, 2014;Rowbottom, 2007).…”

“…Although there is now an extensive body of research (e.g. Annesley, 2014;Conley, 2012a;Rubery and Rafferty, 2013) on the impact of austerity on gender equality, and a growing body of research on the implementation of the SSA in local government (Conley, 2014;McLaughlin, 2014;Oliver et al, 2014;Rowbottom, 2007), there is little sociological research on the implementation of the GED, and none that we are aware of which brings together primary research data on these two key initiatives for women's equality in the UK. The purpose of this article is therefore to report on research which examined the implementation of the GED in relation to equal pay in English local authorities during this turbulent time for gender equality.…”

Equal pay bargaining in the UK local government sector

“…The agreement (known as the SSA) established a single pay and grading system for all employees within its scope and was designed to promote gender pay equality within local authorities (Bach et al., 2009). A growing body of literature has examined this context (Conley, 2013; Deakin et al., 2012; Rowbottom, 2007; Thornley, 2006; Wright, 2011). Prior to 1997, the pay and conditions of different groups of local authority workers (manual workers; administrative, professional, technical and clerical workers; and skilled craft workers) were determined by separate collective agreements known as the white book, the purple book and the red book.…”

Promises and practices: job evaluation and equal pay forty years on!

“…2), 2008). Such litigation was taken seriously and led to Equal Opportunities Commission 6 (EOC) to explore whether protection from litigation should be afforded to employers for a time while implementing new pay structures leading to equal pay (Rowbottom, 2007). Additionally, as a result of JES being introduced into councils, it was found that the bonuses paid to one group of workers (mainly men) were not paid to other groups of workers on the same grade (mainly women) and some could not be justified; a hearing on this matter is due in the Supreme Court shortly 7 .…”