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07 May 2010 / Dr Jon Robins
Issue: 7416 / Categories: Opinion , Employment
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Mind the gap

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“Nobody takes any notice of the Equal Pay Act”. That’s the resigned view of Sue, a 53-year old home care worker.

“Nobody takes any notice of the Equal Pay Act”. That’s the resigned view of Sue, a 53-year old home care worker. For almost two decades Sue worked for a county council helping the old and vulnerable in their homes. She is one of 1,600 low-paid women to have pursued equal pay claims through Unison against her council employers. She recently received over £30,000 in compensation. Sue reckons if she had genuine equality with her male council workers she should recovered about £70,000.

Happy anniversary?

It is the 40th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act this month yet the Fawcett Society reports that women working full time earn on average 17% less than men. What is the achievement of this landmark legislation?

Does Sue feel that the 1970 Act has made life fairer? “Not really. The council gets away with what it can. They know they have a group of women like

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Stephen Gold’s latest Civil Way column rounds up a flurry of procedural and regulatory changes reshaping housing, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and personal injury litigation
Patients are being systematically failed by an NHS complaints regime that is opaque, poorly enforced and often stacked against them, argues Charles Davey of The Barrister Group
A wealthy Russian divorce battle has produced a sharp warning about trying to challenge foreign nuptial agreements in the wrong English court. Writing in NLJ this week, Vanessa Friend and Robert Jackson of Hodge Jones & Allen examine Timokhin v Timokhina, where the High Court enforced Russian judgments arising from a prenuptial agreement despite arguments based on the landmark Radmacher decision
An obscure Victorian tort may be heading for an unexpected revival after a significant Privy Council ruling that could reshape liability for dangerous escapes, according to Richard Buckley, barrister and emeritus professor of law at the University of Reading
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