Equal Pay Act changes outlined

Press, 11 December 1976, Page 6

Equal Pay Act changes outlined

It would pay women to acquaint themselves with the new equal-pay provisions under the recent amendment to the Equal Pay Act, 1972, said the chairman of the National Advisory’ Council on the Employment of Women (Mrs Elizabeth Orr). Under the amendment the employer was bound to provide detailed information ! about the way women’s rates iwere calculated, said Mrs 'Orr. It had to be given on irequest to factory inspectors and individual workers, and would be used to find if the employer had met the requirements of the act. Employers would be required to give individual, comprehensive written pay advice to women workers whenever their rate of pay was altered for any reason. The amendment also emphasised that any decision by an employer to give workers a rise had to include women,

;and that the worker had the |nght to ask and receive pay i advice when this happened. Claims for wages owing could be made over a period of six years instead of two years as before. Pay records would have to be kept by the employers for the same extended time. The council was pleased that the amending act had been printed and was now [available to help employers ,implement the new provisions, Mrs Orr said. j “We see these amendments as a positive approach by the Government to ensure that equal pay is properly impleimented,” she said. ■— Boxing.—Tho heavy-weight, | Jimmy Young. was named '■•fighter of the month” by “Ring” [magazine for his points victory I over Ron Lyle in November Monty Betham (N.Z.) is ranked (sixth in the junior middleI weigh ta.