British women behind on pay

Press, 8 March 1989, Page 8

British women behind on pay

NZPA-Reuter London Britain’s women earn on average only half as much as men, putting the country well behind comparable West European countries, a report said yesterday. The Equal Opportunities Commission, a Government-funded independent organisation, called for changes in the way Britain deals with sex discrimination in wages. It said Britain had some of the strongest equality laws in the European Community, but their complexity prevented many

women bringing cases against their employers. A 1984 provision allows women to claim equal pay with men who may not be doing similar work but are employed in jobs considered to be of equal value. The commission called for claims to be simplified and for new rules to allow benefits won by a successful claimant to be passed on to other women in the same position. E.C. figures showed wages for women manual wooers in Britain

in 1987 to be 32 per cent less than those of men, while the wage gap for non-manual work was 46 per cent. The figures compared with 17 per cent and 31 per cent respectively for Italy, which had the smallest wage gap of the 12 E.C. countries. The commission’s chief executive, Mr Alan Hart, told' a news conference the statistics did not take account of parttime work. “