Can We use Equal Opportunities Laws More Effectively?

It has been apparent to women in the UK for a long time that the equality legislation of the mid‐seventies is an inadequate remedy to sexual discrimination. Only half of equal pay claims make it as far as an industrial tribunal, and even fewer sex discrimination claims (forty per cent). Of these, only one in ten cases is found in the employee's favour, and the remedies are trifling. Half of all awards in cases where sex discrimination is found are for less than £300, while more than four in ten increases ordered by tribunals for equal pay claims are for less than £8 a week.