by Paula Määttä

I. The types of flexibility introduced

A. Forms of Flexibility: Definitions and Outline

This paper describes the equal pay policy of 12 representative developing and developed countries around the world: Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, India, New Zealand, Philippines, United Kingdom, United States, and Zambia. It aims at showing how different countries deal with this issue.

The International Labour Office has requested governments to respect in their law and practice equal pay for men and women employees, as laid down in the Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100) and the Equal Remuneration Recommendation, 1951 (No. 90). Observance of the principle of equal remuneration has been an objective of the ILO since its foundation in 1919. The original text of the Constitution recognised in Article 41, the principle that men and women should receive "equal remuneration for work of equal value". The principle is again enshrined in the preamble to the present Constitution. The countries examined in this paper, with the exception of the United States, have ratified the Convention.

At the reional level, various instruments have been adopted for the promotion and application of the principle of equal remuneration. Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome, 1957, the Equal Pay Directive, 1975, and the Equal Treatment Directive, 1976, of the European Union, the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, 1981, (Article 15) and the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, 1948 mention the principle of equal pay or equality of rights in terms of employment without distinction to sex.

This paper proceeds country by country. For each country the following items are analysed: equal pay legislation and nature of legal provisions in force, the scope of the concepts, such as remuneration and equal work, on which the legislation is based, the scope of equal pay provisions, supervision and enforcement of the equal pay principle, the role of the social actors, (trade unions, womens organizations) and the role of the public sector. This is followed by a comparative table detailing the main characteristics of the approach used by each country. A final section draws the general conclusions of the paper.

The subsequent sections of this chapter deal with the principle of equal remuneration in the ILO context, and assess briefly the situation of women in the labour market in relation to equal pay.