Angela Berry, chair of the Employment and Business subcommittee of the Task Force on Women's Issues yesterday told The Royal Gazette an equal pay bill could be before the House of Assembly by the 1998 fall session.

"We could possibly be looking at a year's time, if all goes well,'' she said.

"Maybe the fall session of 1998.'' Mrs. Berry said the time frame would depend on the model legislation used by drafts men to construct a Bermudian Act.

"If we use a good model, then we will not have to fine tune it too much to suit Bermuda.'' And Mrs. Berry said if the Ministry of Women's Issues took the lead, in conjunction with the Attorney General's Chamber, in drafting the Act, the process could be accelerated.

"Usually the Attorney General's Chamber takes the lead, but they are really backed up with work,'' she explained. "But if the Ministry for Women's Issues takes the lead in drafting the legislation it may get done sooner.'' The recently released final report of the Task Force on Women's Issues contained an example of the type of equal pay legislation that could go before local MP's and Senators.

A model appeared in the appendix of the report and claimed that the aim of such legislation was to remove and prevent discrimination based on sex of an employee with respect to wages.

The model defined equal pay as the rate of compensation for work where there is no difference between male and females.

Equal work was defined as the work performed by male or female employees where duties, responsibilities, qualifications and work conditions were the same or substantially similar.

Pay law From Page 1 And any difference between the duties of men and women were considered as infrequent or not of practical importance.

Mrs. Berry said the model was put in the report to give the public an idea of what equal pay legislation entailed.

"It is not necessarily the one that will be used,'' she said. "It is just an example.

"No model would be effective without some modifications to suit Bermuda.

There will need to be some fine tuning.'' And Mrs. Berry said there were a number of countries that had equal pay Acts that could be adapted to suit the Island.

"There are a couple of Commonwealth countries, like Canada, Britain or Bahamas that have them,'' she said. "I would think they would look to them first.'' Mrs. Berry said the forthcoming legislation will initially fall under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Women's Issues, but later may be placed under the domain of a commission.

"The Women's Ministry would be taking the lead and pushing it initially,'' she explained. "In the end, if the report's recommendations are accepted, it will fall under the jurisdiction of an Equal Opportunity Commission.''