Because of the large number of women taking jobs in the war industries during World War II, the governments urged employers in 1942 to voluntarily make “adjustments which equalize wage or salary rates paid to females with the rates paid to males for comparable quality and quantity of work on the same or similar operations.” Not only did employers fail to listen to this “voluntary” request, but also, at the end of the war, most women lost their new jobs to make room for returning veterans. Until the early 1960s, newspapers published separate job listings for men and women. Jobs were categorized according to sex, with the higher level jobs listed almost exclusively under “Help Wanted—Male.” In some cases the ads ran identical jobs under male and female listings—but with separate pay scales. Separate, of course, meant unequal: between 1950 and 1960, women with full-time jobs earned on average between 59–64 cents for every dollar their male counterparts earned in the same job.
[...] In order to establish a violation of the Act, it must be shown that an employer pays different wages to employees of opposite sexes "for equal work on jobs the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions," [417 U.S 189] except where the difference in payment is made pursuant to a seniority or merit system or one measuring earnings by quantity or quality of production, or where the differential is "based on any other factor other than sex." 3-Evaluation of the Equal Pay Act 1970 A variety of explanations for the persistent wage gap have been offered. [...]
[...] But even the narrow wage gap of that applies to women under 25 looks less rosy when you consider economist Katha Pollitt's take on it: “Young men and women have always had earnings more compatible than those of their elders: starting salaries are generally low, and do not accurately reflect the advantages that accrue, or fail to accrue, over time as men advance and women stay in place, or as women in mostly female kinds of jobs reach the end of characteristically short career paths.” (The Nation, April 14, 1997) Thirty years after the passing of the Equal Pay Act in 1970, a new survey suggests that women could have to wait another 30 years before they can expect to be paid the same as their male colleagues. [...]
[...] Section requirement of equal treatment for men and women in same employment 1 If the terms of a contract under which a woman is employed at an establishment in Great Britain do not include (directly or by reference to a collective agreement or otherwise) an equality clause they shall be deemed to include one that basically says that any terms of a contract that benefits to a man should be included in woman's contract for an equivalent or similar job The Equal Pay Act 1970 in brief 1. [...]
[...] Two landmark court cases served to strengthen and further define the Equal Pay Act: Schultz v. Wheaton Glass Co. (1970), U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit: Ruled that jobs need to be “substantially equal” but not “identical” to fall under the protection of the Equal Pay Act. An employer cannot, for example, change the job titles of women workers in order to pay them less than men. Corning Glass Works v. Brennan (1974), U.S. Supreme Court: Ruled that employers cannot justify paying women lower wages because that is what they traditionally received under the “going market rate.” A wage differential occurring “simply because men would not work at the low rates paid women” was unacceptable. [...]
[...] Any employee can take an equal pay claim as a complaint to an Employment Tribunal. There is no age or length of service requirement to present a claim, and the applicant does not have to work any specified number of hours. An employee can also bring an equal pay claim in the County Court or High Court in the form of an action for breach of contract Where an applicant has no remedy under the Equal Pay Act 1970, an Employment Tribunal has jurisdiction to hear a claim brought directly under European Community law. [...]
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