Why are women by Wendy workers low paid?

Scan page 6

THE latest discussion booklet issued by the Low Pay Unit (Women, Work and Wages) provides a useful summary of the reasons why low pay particularly affects women and some proposals about what to do about it.

Women's low pay relative to men's has to be seen in the context of the dual role of women as workers: unpaid in the home, and badly-paid when employed outside.

It is not enough to try to improve the situation by legislating for minimum or equal rates and equal training or promotion opportunities, without acknowledging the reasons why women are forced to take part-time or unskilled work because of family responsibilities.

Low pay is particularly a women's problem: 6 out of every 10 low-paid workers are female. For part-timers the position is worse: 9 out of 10 are low paid.

Yet women are increasingly the sole providers for their households, either as one-parent families, as single people or because their husbands are unemployed. The old idea that women work for pin-money and their low earnings are therefore less important than men's wages is now at least formally rejected by the trade unions, although so far few of them have acted on their new-found knowledge.

After the Equal Pay Act was introduced in 1975, women's average hourly earnings improved slowly relative to men's, but in the last two years they have started to drop back. At no time have women earned on May 9 16 23 30 2 17 2.1.31 310 18 2b 12 19 263 13 20 27 2' 24 WHAT'S Paid ads Sp per word, f4 per column inch. Send to Socialist Organiser (What's On), 28 Middle Lane, London N8.

U.S. HANDS OFF El Salvador! Demonstrate against Reagan's visit. Sunday June 6, 12.30 at Hyde Park, Monday June 7,5.30 at US Emb assy, Grosvenor Square. Tuesday June 8, 1pm, lobby of Parliament. Contact: Reagan Reception Committee, PO Box 51, London SW10.

SOCIALIST ORGANISER Delegate Meeting: Sunday May 9, 11am to 5pm, at County Hall, London SEI. average more than three-quarters of the men's rate.

The narrowing of differentials, the pamphlet argues, would probably have happened anyway after 1975, regardless of the legislation, thanks to government pay policies which included flat-rate increases.

The Equal Pay Act has proved a disappointment to those who pinned their hopes on winning equality from it. It is well-known how employers have evaded the Act: by separating men and women's jobs into different grades and so on.

Many women suffered because they worked in areas where no men performed the same type of work as them, and hence there was no men's rate to win equality Such ghettoisation of women into particular industries and types of employment continues to be one of the major reasons why women continue to be low-paid. These areas such as cleaning, catering and other 'natural' extensions of household labour also tend to be the ones Teast well organised by unions, and/or most badly affected by the recession, such as textiles, clothing and electrical assembly.

The fact that unions continue to be male-dominated and - with some exceptions - fail to actively encourage parțicipation by their women members, also contributes to women's secondary economic position.

The pamphlet concludes by recommending:

LUTTE OUVRIERE fete: international festival of revolutionary socialism. Saturday to Monday, May 29-31, at Presles, Val d'Oise, France. A delegation of SO support-. ers will be going over to the fete: all comrades interested, please write to SO, 28 Middle Lane, London N8.

STOP THE DEPORTATION of Najat Chafee! Picket the appeal. Friday May 7, 9am, Thanet House, The Strand. Contact: Friends of Najat Chafee, 138 Minet Ave, London NW10.

MANCHESTER Labour Committee on Ireland meeting: Thursday May 13, 7.30 at the Britons Protection pub, Gt Bridgewater St, Manchester 1. Speaker: Pat Byrne, who was secretary of the Irish Republican Congress in the 1930s. LP members only.

STUDENT FIGHTBACK conference. Saturday and Sunday May 8-9. Manchester University Students' Union. Oxford Rd, Manchester.

Contact:

Solidarnosc Trade Union Working Group, 64 Philbeach Gardens, London SW5. 01-373 3492.

Mustill

*strengthening the existing laws to encourage positive action to bring women into traditionally male areas, *that women's different work/career patterns be fully taken into account, *extended facilities for child-care, time off etc. which recognises the responsibilities of both parents (and society) in the rearing of children, *more positive by unions.

in MARCH WITH US TO WOMEN'S FESTIVAL AND RALLY MOVEMENT. THE •Come and join us on June 5th. We'll be assembling at County Hall, Waterloo, from 10.30 and the march will start to move off at national IlamanlEanti... WORK HOW YOU CAN HELP 181 Kichmona Koad, London Lo.

by Mu