1
N
:
Pensionability for Married Women was not
popular with most Secretarial Class officers as it involved the cessation of their option for a gratuity on marriage which the majority preferred. Many who had already married and had seemingly nothing to lose by opting for conversion to pensionable terms nevertheless chose to remain non-pensionable because under existing terms they had the right to fully paid maternity leave, which it was inferred was to be forfeit under pensionability.
Later, maternity leave at half pay was restored for those who had been very willing to lose it in exchange for a 25% increase on equal pay and pensionability, but at the same time the fully-paid rate for those who had not benefitted, mainly the grades of the Secretarial Class, was reduced to half pay in the interests of uniformity.
To re-establish their place in the overall Government structure all Secretarial Class grades in 1976 asked for pay increases commensurate with their "loss" on Equal Pay. The SATS are the only ones now holding out.
Government's answers
K
(a) Unless evidence could be produced to the contrary,
exclusively female grades were regarded as already receiving 'pay for the job' when the Equal Pay Scheme was introduced in 1969.
(b)
The internal relativities of female Clerks and Clerical Assistants on the one hand and Typists, SATS and Personal Secretaries on the other were distorted by Equal Pay but the distortions in favour of the Clerical Class were considered justified by the levels of responsibility of the respective ranks.
(c) The Salaries Commission of 1971 considered the
effects of Equal Pay on grades in the Secretarial Class and in para. 161 of their report said that the scales they were then recommending were intended to correct any anomalies there may have been.
(a)