Thread by @volewriter

In tonight's vintage mag tweets, I'll show just a few of the ways male employers tried to wriggle out of the 1976 Equal Pay Act.

Even when female workers managed to take their fight to the EOC and win, firms would launch a counter-appeal to delay having to pay them the proper wage.

Although sometimes they were 'lucky' and the boss breaking the law gave in without too much fuss.

Here's a great bit of logic from an employer determined to dodge the law.

Here's a clever dodge by Electrolux to keep its female workers on lower pay than men.

Here's a partcularly creative excuse by Vauxhall for paying men more than women.

Because sweeping the floor, if you're a man, requires initiative, complexity and judgement.

Note, too, how many employers took dodgy measures before the Equal Pay Act came in to protect their male workers' wages and ensure they could still pay women less.

Women: by definition Casual Workers because they 'have to take time off to look after others'.

Here's a good one: 'owing to the employer having to raise women's wage, he'd be forced to cut their hours and so pay them less'.

Here are some more women doing exactly the same job as men and being paid less.

Female senior consultant: £3000 PA. Male senior consultant: £3500.

That was from 1981, so well after the law came in. Employers thought they were invulnerable.

And another.

Shop steward explains how a low-paid job is "all right for a woman".

1975 and the government of Eire's desperate to stop the law coming in.

Safeguarding women's jobs is a retrograde step, explains chamber of commerce.

OK, I have another dozen or so of these but I'll add them in on Sunday if anyone wants to "collect the set".

But how incredibly disappointing that women are STILL fighting for equal pay, forty years after this law.

And that employers are still trying to find dodges around it.

But at the same time, a massive thank you to those women who did fight for equal pay, who did stand up to their bosses, and strike, and picket, and apply to tribunals, and bypass useless shop stewards, and go back to appeal when they lost.

Where would we be without these brave women?

And I think this is what gets to me sometimes: that women have had to fight so hard for the very basics, the stuff that drops into men's laps. Every damn thing seems to have been a battle in the 70s and 80s.

We couldn't go into that sports club, we couldn't order a restaurant meal on our own, we couldn't drink a pint in a pub, buy a vacuum cleaner on HP, get a coil fitted without hubby's say-so, claim back our own tax allowance.

(Because met's not forget that the Equal Pay Act was just that - it deliberately excluded issues of tax, pensions, benefits, all of which were much much lower for women on account of their being 'dependents'. )

And yes, we have made gains, but not without a lot of grief and there's still a heck of a way to go.

So, it being Sunday, let's look at more vintage mag clippings and again they're to do specifically with equal pay for women (or lack of it). I'll tag this thread #WASPI for those involved with the current pension fight.

Riddle me this: what's the difference between a male cushion stuffer and a female cushion stuffer? We don't know, but the men get more.

Women's unemployment doesn't count as real unemployment.

Turns out they didn't have to worry anyway.

#WASPI

She was only a glorified housewife, apparently.

In 1981 you could legally pay part time workers a lower rate than full time workers. And it so happened that most part time workers were ... you guessed it.

Yes, she won. But this is 6 years after the law about Equal Pay came in, and look at the way her employers tried to intimidate her.

This is the state of play EIGHT years after the law stated men and women must be paid equally.

Employers giving men different job titles so they can pay them at higher rates: women meanwhile being interviewed for jobs they'll never get.

Nine years!
Also, how come cleaning three toilets is equal to cleaning two?

He's seething with resentment, isn't he?

#WASPI

Reading back that last tweet, it seems like it can only be malice which prompted men to keep women out of pension schemes. What other justification could there be??

Britain somewhat slow to catch up.

In fact even after 1973, the government deliberately dragged its heels about legislating for equal pay.

Some figures.

Basically, love, the problem's that you're just not as good as the guys.

I do love the way they've gone straight for the female pronoun here when on every other page the default is male.

Of course, there were many many jobs where women were expected to work without any pay at all.

(As an aside, we had a family friend who was a vicar's wife, and she was treated like a skivvy by the church.)

#WASPI

Comments from an unfair dismissal tribunal: not to worry, love, you're a good-looking girl.

When you look back at the various underhand dodges and delaying tactics employers used, it's not really surprising, is it?

In N Ireland the Equal Pay Act was virtually useless for years.

(If anyone has info on when and how the Act there was strengthened, I'd be interested to hear.)

Last one for tonight, and it's par for the course. Presumably Cammell Laird were just hoping she'd give up.

Once again, a huge huge thank you to those women who DID stand up and fight for what was rightfully theirs. I hope the young women of today know about them, and the struggle they went through.