Miscellaneous -
Employment 2
It
is 30 years since the Equal Pay Act was passed,
and 25 years since the Sex Discrimination Act
(SDA) became law. Yet it seems women are still
fighting an uphill battle for level pegging, in
areas from equal pay for equal work, to the right
to wear trousers. Even pop stars are not immune
from pay discrimination. Just a few months ago,
it was revealed that the male members of teen
group Steps were being paid up to twice as much
as the girls. The Trades Union Congress is
currently running a campaign urging women to find
out whether they are being paid the same as their
male counterparts. But asking a colleague the
size of his paypacket flies in the face of
convention for the reserved British.
The
Government was accused of "rank
hypocrisy" in its plans to help older
workers after it slipped out proposals to cut
statutory redundancy pay for the over-40s. In a
move that could cost employees thousands of
pounds, people aged between 41 and 65 will see
their redundancy cut from one and a half week's
pay to one week's pay for each year of service.
The move, which will bring those over 40 into
line with their younger colleagues, triggered
fury from trade unions, age charities and the
Tories and Liberal Democrats. Labour MPs are also
certain to complain about the decision to tear up
a scheme that was introduced by Harold Wilson and
has been in place unchanged for almost 40 years.
The outcry started as Patricia Hewitt, the Trade
and Industry Secretary, struggled to fend off
accusations that the Government's anti-ageism
proposals would lead to staff being forced to
work to 70. Buried in the proposals published
yesterday was a section advocating the end of a
higher rate of redundancy for older employees.
The document saysthat "it is no longer
appropriate for age to be used as a factor in the
payment calculation" of redundancy because
other moves to outlaw age discrimination would be
introduced by 2006. "The weighting of
payments in favour of older workers was motivated
by a perception at the time that the adverse
effects of being made redundant generally
increased with age," it says.
"However, younger workers can also be
seriously affected by redundancy: they commonly
have young families, large mortgages and
consequently heavy financial commitments."
But the TUC general secretary, Brendan Barber,
said that there was no reason for the rate not to
have been upgraded for everyone instead of being
downgraded. "If there are to be any changes
made to redundancy payments as a result of the
new regulations, any change should be about
taking everyone up to the higher level," he
said.
Paul Burstow, the Liberal Democrat spokesman on
older people, said the proposal underlined just
how grudging the Government had been on the issue
of age discrimination. "It's rank
hypocrisy," he said. "You can't tackle
age discrimination in the workplace by devaluing
older workers on the cheap. It sends exactly the
wrong signal." David Willetts, the shadow
Work and Pensions Secretary, said, "It's
absolutely typical that they have smuggled this
out in this way." Despite the fact that the
changes could save companies millions of pounds,
even some business groups expressed concern at
the idea.
David Yeandle, deputy director of the Engineering
Employers Federation, said most firms had shown
no enthusiasm for a levelling down even though it
could, in theory, cut redundancy costs.
"This will open a Pandora's box and create
lots of complications for employers," he
said. Jack Frost, spokesman for Help the Aged's
Third Age Employment Network, said, "What we
are effectively saying is that we are making it
cheaper for employers to make older people
redundant. The UK already has the third lowest
statutory redundancy rate in the EU, and this may
take us even lower."
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