Equal Pay Act of 1963
In 1942, Republican congresswoman Winifred C. Stanley from Buffalo, N.Y. introduced H.R. 5056, Prohibiting Discrimination in Pay on Account of Sex, which did not pass at the time. The issue languished until 10 June 1963, when Congress passed the Equal Pay Act ("EPA" or the "Act") as an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act, to "prohibit discrimination on account of sex in the payment of wages by employers."
Ford sewing machinists strike of 1968
The movement ultimately resulted in the passing of the Equal Pay Act 1970, which came into force in 1975 and which did, for the first time, aim to prohibit inequality of treatment between men and women in Britain in terms of pay and conditions of employment. In the second reading debate of the bill, MP Shirley Summerskill spoke of the machinists playing a "very significant part in the history of the struggle for equal pay". Once the UK joined the European Union in 1973, it also became subject to Article 119 of the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which specified that men and women should receive equal pay for equal work.