ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the legacy from the Equal Pay Act 1970 and its ineffective definition of women as workers. The idea of sameness between women and men workers, which was embraced in the Equal Pay Act, was inadequate as a basis on which to build improved conditions and wages for women. The Equal Pay Act implied that for women workers to gain equality with men their different worker concerns should be disregarded in the workplace. Gaining equal pay for women meant adapting to the male-specific environment of workplaces. The number of women in workplaces in the late 1990s, even if many of them are involved in part-time work, identifies the figure of the 'male breadwinner’ as an imagined one. To be able to gain for women the same worker status and wages as men, the often different worker concerns of women require full recognition in workplace negotiations.
