In the 1959 General Election, the Labour Party's Manifesto had proposed a charter of rights including 'the right to equal pay for equal work'.[2] September 1965 saw the Trades Union Congress resolving 'its support for the principles of equality of treatment and opportunity for women workers in industry, and calls upon the General Council to request the government to implement the promise of 'the right to equal pay for equal work' as set out in the Labour Party election manifesto'.[3] However, there was no immediate action by either government or unions.
A trigger cause for the introduction of the legislation was the 1968 Ford sewing machinists strike,[4] though the legislation also paved the way for the UK's entry to the European Community, helping to bring it towards conformity with Article 141 of the Treaty of Rome, which says that 'each Member State shall ensure that the principle of equal pay for male and female workers for equal work or work of equal value is applied.'.[5][6] The Act came into force on 29 December 1975. The term pay is interpreted in a broad sense to include, on top of wages, things like holidays, pension rights, company perks and some kinds of bonuses. The legislation has been amended on a number of recent occasions to incorporate a simplified approach under European Union law that is common to all member states. The 1970 Act only dealt with equal pay for the same work but in 1975 the EU directive on Equal Pay was passed based on article 119.
In 1978, despite the passage of legislation to promote equal pay, women’s relative position in the UK was still worse than in Italy, France, Germany, or the Benelux countries in 1972.[7]
The Equal Pay Act was repealed but its substantive provisions were replicated in the Equality Act 2010.