Partial victory on equal pay

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A TEN-DAY strike by 1,500 local government workers in San Jose, California, has brought a major step forward in the fight for equal pay to women.

The strike, by Local 101 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, was supported by both men and women workers.

Its demands - for equal pay for comparable rather than simply equal work stood to benefit not only women workers but also male workers in womendominated jobs.

Stretching

ine demands aro se following a report which showed that jobs in which women were in the majority were paid anything from 2% to 20% less than male-dominated jobs.

But the demand for equal pay has repercussions stretching far beyond the municipal administration in San Jose.

The city is at the centre of the electronics industry, in which thousands of largely unorganised women workers are subjected to particularly heavy exploitation.

Any concession on equal pay to the strikers - in the first-ever US strike on the issue - could send ripples of militancy throughout the electronics plants, and spread rapidly to the USA's two million women trade unionists.

It was with this in view that the city council at first rejected a four year package deal to phase in equal pay for comparable work, agreed between unions and the council's own negotiator.

This had a particular irony - since the city is regarded as the "women's capital of the USA" , in which a majority of councillors are women, as is the Mayor, Janet Gray Hayes.

With electricians and San women on plumbers respecting the AFSCME picket lines, and angry strikers lobbying and even bursting into closed council meetings, the council leaders were eventually forced to agree a compromise two-year deal, together: with a substantially improved pay offer.

The funds allocated to work towards equal pay allow for an average upward adjustment of 9.6% for women in the underpaid jobs - with some increases as much as 15%.

Paises

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ON STRIKE AFSCM.