The Gazette 1975

However, during the debates in the Dail, the Minister for Labour indicated that he intends introducing proposals for further legislation dealing with dis- crim ination in the areas of access to employment, promotion and training. The consequences of employing men on "women's" work, or women on "men's" work, may lead some employers to maintain a strict segregation. For it is only if men arc doing "like work" of a "similar nature" that women will be able to establish a claim to equal pay. It follows that the Act is unlikely to expand women's job opportunities, particularly in areas of traditional segregation such as office work. All these criticisms may similarly be made of the British Act. Section 3 defines "like work". Two persons are to be regarded as being employed on "like work" where: (1) both perform the same work under the same or similar conditions or where each is fully- interchangeable with the other in relation to the work; or (2) the work performed by one is of a similar nature to that performed by the other and any differences between the work performed occur only infrequently or are of small importance in relation to the work as a whole; or, finally, (3) the work performed by one is equal to that performed by the other in terms of the demands it makes on each person. Under section 4, in the absence of a term of a woman's contract of employment or otherwise entitling her to equal pay, the terms and conditions of her employment shall include an implied term to that effect; and this implied statutory term is to prevail over an express term to the contrary: there can be no "contracting out" of the Act. Terms of employment which include unequal pay provisions under a collective agreement, an employ- ment regulation order made pursuant to the Indus- trial Relations Act, 1946, Part IV, an employment agreement registered under Part 111 of the latter Act and an order made by the Agricultural Wages Board under section 17 of the Agricultural Wages Act, 1936, shall be "null and void" if made after the commence- ment of the Act. Those made before the operative date of the Act are not affected for the purely prag- matic reason that there are so many of them that it would be unrealistic to expect them all to be re- negotiated before the operative date. Obviously, each wiíl eventually fall due for review and the Act will then apply to the new agreements, regulations or orders. Equal Pay Officers Then come the "teeth" of the Act — or rather, the guardians of it, in the form of "Equal Pal Officers". They are to be appointed by the Minister for Labour after consultation with the Labour Court and with the consent of the Minister for the Public Service, who will determine the terms of employment and remuneration of the equal pay officers.

Bill was introduced in 1974 (having originally been mapped out by the Commission 011 the Status of Women)' passed through both Houses before the Christmas recess and was promulgated in the second week of January. 1975. The Irish Anti-Discrimination (Pay) Act 1974 An examination of the provisions of the Act reveals that it apparently complies with most of the minimum terms of the EEC Directive (with some notable exceptions) — and this seems to have been the obvious intention of the Legislature. Unlike the British Act, it does not aim to achieve equal treat- ment in other terms and conditions of employment such as holidays, hours, provision of clothes and sick-pay, but only in respect of pay. It may well be that holidays provided for under the Holidays (Employees) Act, 1973 and hours under the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act, 1973 will bring our law into harmony with the U.K. Act in some of these respects. As the Opposition put it in the Dail, "We have had to have three Bills to do the work of one." Against this, the U.K. may have to look again at its Equal Pay Act in the light of the EEC Directive. The essence of the new Irish Act is to be found in Section 2. Where a woman is employed by the same employer on like work with that of a man in the same place of employment, she will be entitled to equal pay. However, different rates of remuneration may be paid to employees in the same place of employment on like work on grounds other than sex, e.g. where service pay, incremental scales and soforth, apply. A crucial question arises regarding the area of comparison which a woman may draw with men's jobs. She may only compare her job with those of men employed in the same place and by the same employer if both are employed on like work (section 2(1)). Suppose the employer has three establishments. A, B and C. The same job is carried out in all three places by men and women. The men at A and B are employed at the same rate but the women at A, B and C and the men at C are paid at a lower rate. The women at A and B are entitled to equal pay with the men at A and B; but neither the women at C nor the men at C are entitled to be paid the same as the men and women at A and B. (The same defect is to be found in the British Act: Hepple & O'Higgins, Individual Employment Law, Sweet & Maxwell, 1971, .p.99). Likewise, an employer could maintain two distinct places of employment, employing solely men at one place and solely women at the other; in such case the women would not enjoy the right to equal pay with that of the men. Neither does the Act entitle women to equal treat- ment with men in respect of so-called "ex gratia" (or "discretionary") bonuses. (Such may be legally enforceable: Edwards v. Skyways Ltd.—(1964) 1 All E.R. 494). What is more serious is that an applicant for a job can be turned down lawfully on grounds of sex, and promotion may lawfully be refused on grounds of sex, unless there is a contractual right to upgrading.