The politics of Conservative reform: the equal pay for equal work issue, 1945–1955

Abstract

AbstractAlthough Conservative M.P.s were instrumental in defeating equal pay proposals in parliament in 1936 and 1944, it was a Conservative government which in 1954 decided to proceed with equal pay for female civil servants. Previous explanations for this reversal of traditional Conservative policy have focused on the need to increase the supply of female applicants for civil service positions, and the equal pay campaigns by white–collar unions and by the feminist Equal Pay Campaign Committee. Drawing upon previously unused sources, including P.R.O.files, this article offers a more overtly political explanation.Within four weeks after the Labour party announced in January 1954 that it would ‘immediately’ implement equal pay when the next Labour government was formed, R. A. Butler, the chancellor of the exchequer, informed his treasury advisers that he wished to proceed with equal pay. With a general election looming in the near future, and believing themselves engaged in a close race with the Labour party, the cabinet reluctantly endorsed reform, fearing that a failure to act might tip sufficient female voters toward Labour to determine the outcome of a close election.