FROM THE ARCHIVES:Pay discrimination in the Civil Service against women and single men was finally phased out in the 1970s, as this report by industrial correspondent Patrick Nolan explained. -
JOE JOYCE
EQUAL PAY will begin to be applied in the Civil Service. It has been agreed in principle that the pay differentials between women and men will begin to be narrowed from June 1st next year, when settlements under the current national pay agreement take place.
Generally, two pay scales apply to Civil Service grades to which men and women are recruited, one for a married men [sic] and the other – 20% lower – for women and single men. There are nearly 6,000 women in these grades. Negotiations by Civil Service unions have resulted in agreement in principle that the differentials will be narrowed by 17½% from June 1st. This is the narrowing permitted under the national agreement accepted by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions last July.
Presumably, full pay equality will be attained by the end of 1977, as recommended by the Commission on the Status of Women. This will certainly be the objective of the unions.
As equal pay is applied, it will become necessary to grant consequential increases to all female grades, like the 4,500-member clerk-typist grade. In its interim report of August, 1971, the commission recognised this and the Department of Finance estimated these related adjustments would cost £650,000 a year.
The commission recognised that the appropriate “rate for the job” in marriage-differentiated scales should be the higher or married scale. Single men will also benefit under the narrowing of the differentials.
Female professional civil servants . . . are victims of straightforward sex discrimination. They number about 300 out of a total of 4,000 professional civil servants. Although they have the same qualifications and responsibilities as their male colleagues, they receive only about 80% of the male scale, a scale paid to them irrespective of whether they are married or single. It has now been agreed that, in their case, the differential will be shortened by 17½% from June 1st
Teachers have not yet begun their negotiations for equal pay but will have concluded them long before their current agreements expire on May 31st next. They receive marriage differentiated scales; the scale for women and single men is only 80% of that of married men. Religious teachers – priests, nuns and religious brothers – receive the lower scale, and the differential against them is due to be gradually eliminated over the next five years.
Equal pay will be a costly concession for the teaching profession. About 60% of the 12,000 members whom the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation represents in the Republic are women. Only 35% are married men. Of the total of 8,016 secondary teachers, 2,418 are religious and about 1,600 laymen are on the married scale.
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