Guest blogger Suzanne Jobling is a PhD student at Queen’s University Belfast studying women’s employment and equal pay in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Great Britain and the impact of the European legislation in this area. In this post she writes about her research in the TUC Library. Suzanne’s research trip was assisted with funding from the Women’s History Association of Ireland (WHAI).
The groundbreaking nature of the equal pay and sex discrimination legislation introduced in the UK in the 1970s has largely been forgotten about in recent decades. However, while society has become accustomed to the concept of equal pay, and discrimination in the workplace is largely frowned upon, and prohibited in law, inequalities remain. In 2000 the TUC provided a reminder of the continuing importance of equal pay, declaring that ‘the idea of “equal pay for work of equal value”’ was ‘one of the most revolutionary concepts to emerge in recent times’1. Widespread application of the equal pay concept took many years to achieve, from the first motion in favour of equal pay at a TUC conference in 1888 by Clementina Black, to its introduction in the civil service in the 1950s and finally the introduction of the Equal Pay Act in the 1970s.2
While the introduction of the Equal Pay Act 1970 was a positive development for women workers, the legislation had significant shortcomings. Since the act stipulated that equal pay was dependent on a woman performing work comparable with that of a man in order to be eligible for equal pay, many women remained within the ranks of the lowest-paid since they performed work that was not performed by men and was not, therefore, comparable – e.g. hairdressers and typists. The Equal Pay Act also omitted pensions from its provisions, a significant deficiency allowing employers a means of continuing to pay male workers greater amounts than women workers whilst still complying with the law. There were many additional ways in which the act could be evaded by employers, such as segregating the workforce so that men and women workers worked in entirely different jobs, thus ensuring that their work could not be compared and that women could continue to be paid less than male workers.
In addition to these shortcomings, the Equal Pay Act addressed issues of remuneration only, and did not consider equality of opportunity or access to employment – without which true equality could not be achieved. The introduction of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 addressed this deficit, however, like the Employment Equality Act, it also had limitations, particularly in its exemption of small businesses employing less than five employees from its provisions. This effectively placed a large number of women workers, such as those working in pubs and newsagents for example, outside the act’s remit. Workers employed in private households and residences were also exempt from the act’s provisions, leaving women employed in agriculture or domestic service unprotected.3
Despite the introduction of these laws, many employers were unwilling to make the changes necessary to create a more equal workplace, leaving individual employees in a position where they had to fight for their rights under the Industrial Tribunal system. Making an official complaint was a considerable undertaking. Tribunals were not always impartial – their composition represented the diversity of viewpoints and discriminatory views existing within society itself and therefore could not be infallible. Additionally, making an official complaint created a difficult relationship with an employer, who, in many cases the employee had worked with for many years and depended on for their livelihood. The narrative and stories revealed in the detail of such cases have received little attention, but provide an incredibly rich insight into workplace norms and societal attitudes in the second half of the twentieth century. While details of both equal pay and sex discrimination cases from the 1970s and 1980s can be found in the National Archives at Kew, the TUC Library at London Metropolitan University contains a series of pamphlets produced by the EOC (Equal Opportunities Commission) publicising the details of significant sex discrimination cases from the 1980s.
One pamphlet describes a 1985 case concerning sex discrimination in relation to promotion. A PE teacher (the complainant) brought a sex discrimination case against a regional council in relation to her failed application for the role of Principal PE teacher at the academy in which she worked. She had worked there since 1970 – for three years as an Assistant Teacher after which she progressed to the role of Assistant Principal Teacher in the school. This teacher was ‘highly regarded’ in the academy. She held a Diploma of Physical Education, but had developed her skills, attending a number of courses and achieving qualifications in areas such as first aid and volleyball. She was a qualified volleyball referee and coach to the Scottish National under-16 and under-19 teams and was regarded as ‘a hockey player of repute’. The complainant was an impressive individual, she had been invited to join the Scottish Central Committee on Physical Education to work on curriculum development by the Secretary of State to Scotland – ‘an opportunity given to only a very small proportion of teachers’.
Previous to the promotion application upon which the case was based, the teacher had applied unsuccessfully for a number of roles as Principal PE teacher while working at the academy. When an opportunity arose within the academy, she approached the headteacher for an application form. She asked the other female PE teacher in the school to accompany her due to previous experiences. When enquiring about promotion applications in the past the headteacher had been ‘extremely patronising’ and had once asked her ‘“is that post not for a man?”’. On this occasion the other female teacher described how the headteacher said “surely if it is a man leaving the post it will need to be a man to replace him”’.
Despite such opposition the complainant applied for the post and was ‘very disappointed’ when she was not called for interview. She was ‘particularly disappointed’ because the male applicant from the academy who had been interviewed had less teaching experience than her and not worked as an Assistant Principal PE teacher. The headteacher advised her that the role was ‘the last bastion of male supremacy and they won’t give up that easily’. A widespread belief existed among women PE teachers in the wider division (which the academy was part of) that they had little chance of promotion since ‘highly qualified’ women who applied had not been successful – a fact that discouraged others from applying.
Before 1975 the division to which the academy belonged had operated a policy whereby if a Principal PE teacher was male then the Assistant Principal teacher should be female and vice versa. As a result, at the time of the complaint the vast majority of principal PE teachers were male and their assistant principal PE teachers were female. Male teachers had expressed ‘disquiet’ that they could not be promoted to Principal PE teacher if they did not work as an Assistant Principal PE teacher, but they had been ‘reassured’ that they could still progress from Assistant teacher to Principal PE teacher. Such reassurance demonstrated that the needs of male PE teachers were prioritised above those of women teachers whose career paths were completely disregarded. It had been expected that this rule would change after the introduction of the Sex Discrimination Act, however, this did not happen.
The council denied the allegations, asserting that the successful applicant was appointed on the basis of merit alone. The male candidate had been rated as ‘eminently suitable’ while the two women candidates were only rated as ‘suitable’. The complainant was judged to be unsuitable due to her ‘unassertive nature and relatively quiet style’ – a very typical and gendered criticism of female teaching styles. The Senior Education Officer for the division gave evidence that she had not been chosen for any of the Principle PE teacher posts that she had applied for ‘because in his opinion she was not the best of the candidates who applied’. The stark facts of this case and incontrovertible nature of the complainant’s qualifications ensured that the Industrial Tribunal upheld her claim, declaring that they ‘felt totally convinced that sexual bias was at work’ and that she would have been successful in her application ‘had it not been for the sex discrimination’. She was awarded two years earnings as compensation since it was unlikely that she would obtain a principle teacher role within the next two years.
The EOC concluded that a properly implemented equal opportunities policy would be particularly helpful in such cases and that ‘sensible monitoring’ of such a policy would serve to highlight similar situations.4 This case serves as a reminder of the behaviours and attitudes that went unquestioned in the working world before the introduction of employment equality legislation and to which there should be no return. A highly qualified and motivated candidate was required to expose the council’s discrimination. This was a significant achievement since making such a complaint was undoubtedly stressful and time-consuming. Cases such as this reveal the reality of women workers’ lives at the time, completely dispelling notions that women workers in the past had less agency than their male counterparts or were any less able or ambitious as comparable male workers.
1 TUC, ‘Campaigning to close the gap: Celebrating 30 years of The Equal Pay Act’ (2008), p.5.
2 ‘Women and Work in the 19th Century’ (https://www.striking-women.org/module/women-and-work/19th-and-early-20th-century)(Accessed 8 June 2023) & Hansard (Commons), dccxcv, 915 (9 Feb. 1970).
3 ‘Discrimination against applicants and employees’
(https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1975/65/section/6/enacted)(Accessed 7 February 2022).
4 London Metropolitan University, TUC Archive, HQ1201-1296, ‘Sex Discrimination Decisions, no. 15 – Teacher Promotion’, EOC.