LA MINERIA PERUANA A TRAVES DEL TIEMPO a) Minería Pre Inca.

1991 was the beginning of the first decisive and sustained improvement in wage equity for women since 1980.615 _{Under corporatist national agreement, the}

Programme for Economic and Social Progress (PESP), equality commitments

included proposed amendments to equality legislation; expanded opportunities for women to take up careers in non-traditional areas; continued monitoring and development, by unions and management, of the equal opportunities policy and guidelines in the civil service; the extension of Government policy in relation to equal opportunities in semi-State bodies to local authorities and health boards; the establishment of ‘Equality Focus Awards’ to encourage employers in the private sector to adopt ‘positive action’ policies; the abolition of age limits in recruitment to the public service; increased health and family planning services; and the provision of child care services for working parents.616

The 1991 Child Care Act put this last commitment into practice, almost twenty years after the initial recommendations were put by Commission of the Status of Women. While the ICTU and feminist groups had been lobbying on this issue since that time, pressure for action on child care was increased in 1992 when the EC adopted a Recommendation on Childcare which required Member States to provide work-related child care facilities and family-friendly workplaces.617 _The

Worker Protection (Regular Part-time Employees) Act 1991 assisted in the

613 _{Irish Times, ‘Equal Pay Unlikely Until 2050,’ 6 July 1989.}

614 _{Y. Fitzsimons, ‘Women's Interest Representation in the Republic of Ireland,’ 44.} 615 _{Central Statistics Office, Statistical Bulletin, (December 1991).}

616 _{Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Implementation of Equality Report, 12-13.}

617 _{Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Report of the Executive Council: 1991-93, (Dublin: ICTU,}

improvement of conditions for part-time workers and was especially significant for women who made up the bulk of such employees. Although negotiated under PESP, both this Act and the Social Welfare (Employment of Inconsiderable

Extent) S. I. No. 5 of 1991 may be interpreted as, in part at least, a reaction to

1989 rulings in the European Court of Justice.618 _{These disallowed national} legislation to exclude part-time workers from continued payment of wages in the event of illness, where the measure affects a considerably greater number of women than men, unless the Member State could show that the legislation was justified by objective factors unrelated to sex.619

Finally, the formation of the National Economic and Social Forum (NESF), in June 1993, was an attempt to broaden the basis for consensus in Ireland’s corporatist approach. Containing 49 members, it included members of the Oireachtas, the social partners (trade unions, employers and farming organisations), women’s groups, the unemployed and other traditionally disadvantaged groups. Fair representation of women on this (as on all government boards) meant that women must comprise at least 40% of representatives.620 The 1994-1997 Programme for Competitiveness and Work, also included a number of equality measures: reducing PAYE tax for those on low incomes and reducing marginal and average tax rates, increasing spending to areas in welfare, health, education and housing in return for relative wage restraint.621 _State-funded child care services have been expanded, number of tax rebates have also been introduced to encourage work-related child care, and the establishment of the Childcare Policy Unit within the Department of Health created an institutional base for the formulation and implementation of policy.622

One of the major results of neo-corporatist arrangements of the late 1980s to mid 1990s has been the rise in real disposable income. It has been estimated that from 1987 to 1992 the real take home pay of single workers rose by some 5 per cent and that of married workers by over 3 per cent. Since 1990 the real value of social welfare payments to most categories of recipients has also risen significantly.623 Under the tripartite agreements unemployment has fallen, industrial conflict has declined, and union membership has increased.

Continuing difficulties with the implementation of equality legislation are evident, however, as conflict arose over the concept of ‘indirect discrimination’

618 _{The two cases were M. L. Ruzuis-Wilbrink v Bestur van de Bedrifsverenging voor Overheids}

diensten and Rinner-Kuhn v F. W. W. Spezial-Gebauderenigung Gmbh & Co KG.

619 _{Eílis Barry, ‘Part Time Workers: Equal Treatment and Work Related Social Welfare}

Rights,’ Irish Law Times (April 1990), 68-78.

620 _{National Co-ordinating Committee for the United Nations Fourth World Conference on}

Women, National Report of Ireland, 30.

621 _{Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD Economic Surveys:}

Ireland 1995, 32.

622 _{Monitoring Committee, Second Progress Report of the Monitoring Committee on the} Implementation of the Recommendations of the Second Commission on the Status of Women, 47-52.

as it related to the 1974 Act.624 _{In the 1990 Packard Electric (Ireland) Ltd. v}

SIPTU case, for example, a change in wage payment arrangements meant that

99.4 per cent of the males employed in the company were eligible for an extra lump-sum payment.625 _{While a complaint of indirect discrimination was} successful before the Equality Officer in 1990,626 _{the decision was overturned in} the Labour Court, in 1991. The Court held that the objective for the company (security for its pay-roll) was justified and unrelated to the sex of the employees.627 _{A similar case involving part-time ‘home-helps’ was successful,} however, when the Equality Officer found that the female claimants had been indirectly discriminated against and awarded equal pay to them.628 _{The ‘home-} helps’ case also touched on the issue of ‘like work’ and was considered to have ‘wide implications’ for comparable workers as the claimants were performing ‘traditionally female work in a predominantly female employment characterised by low pay’.629

The Further Institutionalisation of Feminism

In the 1990s, those sections of the autonomous feminist movement working on equal pay have been increasingly drawn into the institutions of government and the ICTU. This has been both a strength and weakness, while it allows these institutional resources to be utilised for gender equality, feminist influence has become increasingly more invisible.

Within the union movement, a series of priority areas for action in the 1990s were set out in 1992: that unions undertake initiatives for equal pay, equal opportunities, increased training, maternity, paternity, parental and family leave, increased child care, flexitime/job sharing agreements, better wages and conditions for part-time, temporary and contract workers, and act against low pay.630 _{In evaluating how adequately the trade union agenda has reflected} women’s needs over the past 5 years, the ICTU was able to point to the equality measures achieved through the social partnerships but stated that ‘overall developments on equality in the workplace have been hindered by the adverse economic and social conditions in society generally’.631 _{The third 5 year ICTU} Equality Programme: Mainstreaming Equality was released in 1993 with the

624 _{F. Meenan, Working Within the Law: a Practical Guide for Employers and Employees, 105.}

625 _{L. P. Flynn, ‘Forgetting the Essential: Packard Electric (Ireland) Ltd v SIPTU,’ Irish Law} Times (June 1992), 144-146, 144.

626 _{Packard Electric (Ireland) Ltd. v SIPTU (EP8/1990).}

627 _{Packard Electric (Ireland) Ltd. v SIPTU (DEP7/1991).}

628 _{9 Part-time Home-Helps (IMPACT) v North Western Health Board (EP13/92).}

629 _{Employment Equality Agency, 1992 Annual Report, 15.}

630 _{Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Implementation of Equality Report, 3-7.} 631 _{Ibid., 16.}

gloomy prediction that, even if the ‘full potential of equal pay legislation was realised, women’s earnings would still be only 75 per cent of male earnings.632 Within the political and administrative arms of government, feminist influence has been expressed through a new department: the Department of Equality and Law Reform (DELR). This was originally outlined in the Labour Party’s 1992 election policy document Manifesto for Equality.633 _{After the election of the Fine} Gael/Labour Party coalition government a series of institutional, procedural and legislative initiatives were put into practice. The DELR was formed. Cabinet procedures were altered to require that all proposals by government departments for change to existing policies must include a memorandum on the probable impact on women.634 _{Equality legislation has proceeded: the Maternity}

Protection Act 1994 repealed and re-enacted, with amendments, the Maternity Protection of Employee Acts 1981-1991;635 _{and the Adoptive Leave Act 1995 was} introduced;636 _{The DELR also launched a national Code of Practice: Measures to}

Protect the Dignity of Women and Men at Work, to do with sexual harassment, in

September 1994. The Code was drafted by the EEA with the co-operation of both business and union representatives.637 _{It also gives form to an EC resolution, the}

Recommendation and Code of Practice to Protect the Dignity of Women and Men at Work, passed in May 1990.638

Policy Impacts

Figure 4.4, below, illustrates that the stand-still which characterised the 1980s was finally broken in 1991 when significant improvements again began to be made. In 1995 research on male/female wage differentials suggested that 10 per cent of the remaining earnings gap between men and women resulted from the effects of current or past discriminatory practices.639 _{The disproportionate} number of women in low paid occupations was also cited as a significantly contributing factor. The rest of the continuing wage inequality could be accounted for by productivity related factors such as experience. Caring for children and other family members was seen as the main cause of this gendered difference in

632 _{Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Mainstreaming Equality Programme 1993-98, 4.}

633 _{Employment Equality Agency, ‘Minister Mervyn Taylor: The Equality Interview,’ Equality}

News, 3, Employment Equality Agency, April 1995, 8-9.

634 _{Orla O’Farrell, ‘Gender-proofing and Structural Funds,’ Equality News, 3, Employment}

Equality Agency, April 1995, 6.

635 _{Department of Equality and Law Reform, Maternity Protection Act, 1994: Explanatory} Leaflet, Dublin, January 1995.

636 _{Department of Equality and Law Reform, Adoptive Leave Act, 1995: Explanatory Booklet,}

(Dublin, March 1995).

637 _{Employment Equality Agency, ‘Code of Practice Launched,’ Equality News, Employment}

Equality Agency, December 1994, 16.

638 _{Department of Equality and Law Reform, Code of Practice: Measures to Protect the} Dignity of Women and Men at Work, (Dublin: Brunswick Press, September 1994).

experience.640 _{These structural barriers to pay equality have proved extremely} resistant to change.641

Other indicators of women’s position within the labour force have also shown some improvement. By the early 1990s, 33 per cent of the total employed labour force were women, compared to 29 per cent in 1981.642 _{One third of the growth} in women’s employment between 1987 and 1990 was part-time work.643

FIGURE 4.4. Irish Female/Male Earnings (Gender Equity) Industrial Sector Only: 1970-1995644

! " # #! #" # # ## ! "

Source: Central Statistics Office, Statistical Bulletin (Various Years).

Participation rates for Irishwomen continued to vary. In 1992 a National Economic and Social Council report found that although 51 per cent of all single

640 _{Ibid., 52.}

641 _{It is interesting to note that one element of the Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrats}

programme for government, ratified in June 1997, was the promise of a national minimum hourly pay rate. Liam Ferrie, The Irish Emigrant, Electronic News Service, Issue No. 542, June 23 1997.

642 _{Tim Callan and Brian Farrell, Women’s Participation in the Irish Labour Market, (Dublin:}

National Economic and Social Council, 1992), 1.

643 _Ibid.

644 _{The data before 1985 is based on CSO figures for ‘transportable goods industries’}

(manufacturing, mining, quarrying and turf production). This was discontinued and from 1985 the data collected was based on figures for ‘all industries’ (transportable goods industries plus electricity, gas and water supply).

women participated in the labour force, only 25 percent of married women, and 7 per cent of widows, did so.645

The Influence of Feminism? 1991-1996 Assessed

In this third phase of activity within the equal pay policy subsystem it becomes increasingly more difficult to identify the presence and strength of feminist coalitions, as the influence of autonomous feminist groups continued to decline, in favour of the dispersion of feminists throughout the equal pay policy subsystem as a whole. The influence of feminism became increasingly institutionalised, professionalised and, at the same time, less visible. This is partly a reflection of the dynamics of a NSM cycle of protest and partly as a result of the overlapping agendas of the feminist movement and the ‘new Ireland’.

The DELR was a prime example of this tendency. Increased acceptance of some of the principal tenets of feminism within the policy discourse and the passage of policy which would fulfil feminist goals were both evident in the establishment of the DELR and its subsequent policy outputs. This was a considerable advance on the original Ministry of Women’s Affairs in its increased scope, capacity and legitimacy.646 _{Also significant was the review of the original equality legislation} and the progress of that legislation through the Oireachtas.647 _{Equal pay had} certainly become established as a appropriate goal for which to aim during this time.

The progress toward achieving feminist goals, as indicated by the female/male relativities illustrated in Figure 4.4, again showed significant improvement. In an economically-based policy, such as equal pay, quantitative indicators such as those provided by female average weekly earnings are perhaps the most convincing evidence that progress had, indeed, been made. An examination of the broader context, within which the equal pay policy subsystem exists, shows that although the industrial relations system continued to exclude the specific representation of women’s interests before the Labour Court and within national agreements, the EU continued to add to the pressure for pay equity. These systemic factors remained important influences upon the policy subsystem as a whole.

645 _{T. Callen and B. Farrell, Women’s Participation in the Irish Labour Market, 1.}

646 _{In June 1997, however, the incoming Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrats coalition}

government brought the DELR into the renamed Department of Justice and split employment equality issues away from other matters. These became the responsibility of the Ministry of Enterprise, Employment and Trade. Liam Ferrie, The Irish Emigrant, Electronic News Service, Issue No. 543, June 30, 1997.

647 _{Having passed through the Dáil and Seanad, the Employment Equality Bill was referred to}

the Supreme Court by President Robinson in April 1997. The Court subsequently found the Bill was unconstitutional on three points. At the time of writing, both the future of this Bill and the subsequent Equal Status Bill have not been determined as they will have to be redrafted in line with Court determinations.