Equal Pay: Law and Practice

Citation

Guth, J. (2010), "Equal Pay: Law and Practice", International Journal of Law and Management, Vol. 52 No. 2, pp. 165-166. https://doi.org/10.1108/17542431011029479

Equal Pay: Law and Practice aims to be a clear and concise guide for practitioners working in this area and in my view it doesn't do a bad job. Looking at the table of contents, all topics you would expect are there and are logically ordered. The book begins with a brief introduction and history of equal pay and then takes the reader logically through the considerations necessary in an equal pay claim. It introduces the key pieces of legislation both domestic and European; it explains the important terminology defining concepts such as “pay” and “comparators” well and then moves on to a detailed consideration of the different types of possible equal pay claims before considering a possible defence to such claims. The book would do a pretty good job even if it stopped here but it then continues with a number of useful chapters considering equal pay claims in specific circumstances such as in relation to maternity, part time work and pensions. The book concludes with a series of useful appendices providing guidance on Job Evaluations, assessing equal value and statistical analyses. It also contains the Code of Practice on Equal Pay.

Overall the text is well written and good use is made of headings, extracts from legislation and case examples. Each chapter is well structured and laid out well. Splitting the text into numbered paragraphs supported by a comprehensive and intuitive index makes it easy to find the topic you are looking for. The style of writing is however quite formal and it is clearly written for legal practitioners. Many of the paragraphs contain a number of case references in brackets which interrupt the flow of the text and get very irritating after a while. Some of these references may have been better placed in a footnote. I am uncertain as to how useful this book would be for non‐lawyers. It seems to me that a fair bit of legal knowledge is assumed and that a degree of confidence in the reading and dealing with primary material is necessary to get the most out of this text. I may however be underestimating interested readers without legal training here.

The book is a good one for its intended audience of busy practitioners and I think lawyers who are new to equal pay cases would find this book helpful. It does what it intends to do. It is neither exciting nor particularly interesting but it does provide a clear and concise guide to equal pay law and practice.

The problem, as with all guides to law is of course that it was out of date from the minute it was published and it will need updating frequently. Chapter 17 on the impact of the Statutory Grievance Procedure for example is already in need of reconsideration. In addition this book is expensive. At £110, I feel somewhat reluctant to recommend it but if you are working in a busy practice and have to figure equal pay out for yourself, it might just be worth it. I will add the book to my collection and look forward to taking it off the shelf to help me prepare my equal pay lectures.