2005.03.08 ADL\2005\08

Roadmap to Equal Pensions

In 1957 the fathers of the EEC agreed that “Each Member State shall ensure that the principle of equal pay for male and female workers for equal work or work of equal value is applied.”[1] That was the EEC theory of equality. It was widely recognized that two motives lay behind this declaration; the desire to protect women from extra exploitation and the desire to protect the market share of north European companies who had been forced to pay relatively higher wages to women than their Mediterranean competitors. The Court of Justice referred to these two motives as the “social” and the “economic” one. Eventually women brought suits against pension schemes that unfairly favoured men. The Court of Justice ruled in favour of equal pensions as a logical application of the equal pay principle. The fathers of the EU, united at Maastricht, decided to redefine the word “remuneration” rather than to pay the money that they owed to millions of working women.

“THE HIGH CONTRACTING PARTIES, HAVE AGREED UPON the following provision, which shall be annexed to the Treaty establishing the European Community:

For the purposes of Article 119 of this Treaty, benefits under occupational social security schemes shall not be considered as remuneration if and in so far as they are attributable to periods of employment prior to 17 May 1990, except in the case of workers or those claiming under them who have before that date initiated legal proceedings or introduced an equivalent claim under the applicable national law.”

They called this gem the “Protocol concerning Article 119 of the Treaty establishing the European Community” but “Multi-Billion EURO rip-off” would be shorter and more transparent. That was how the EU did not put equality into practice. Those who think that Maastricht is ancient history are hereby reminded of how Dorte Schmid-Brown, Marta Andreasen and certain other, unpublicized women have been mistreated more recently by the Disappointing Authority.