Round-up: jobs, fares, schools

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Fences bearing the message Please harass me, I'm only here for the week' It is clear that although we must use the trade union structure to combat sexism and sexual harassment, we cannot rely on the support of a number of our male "comrades. Only through raising our voices in the movement and at conferences can we force this crucial issue to become normal policy.

Along with groups such as Women Against Violence Against Women, Rape Crisis and politically organised women's groups, women in the Labour and trade union movements have forced issues such as abortion, time off work for mothers to nurse sick children, decent terms of maternity leave and Women's Fightback badge, in yellow and red 20p (plus 15p post) for one, 15p each post free for orders of ten or more, trom 41 Ellington Street, London N7. men feet, at heart, for women. Proof of this is that harassment is not confined to areas where the man/men are in a superior position at work to the woman/women.

Female lecturers have experienced it from male students, women in executive positions from men lower in the work hierarchy.

Mary Miles of AUEW TASS stressed the need to by-pass male-dominated committees wherever possible by organising all women sub-committees in trade union branches and to organise all-women meetings in workplaces where women may be suffering sexual harassment without knowing it even has a name. It should not be a feature of working life that has to be faced with resignation and bottled-up resentment.

Judges

On the legal side Tess Gill, a trade union lawyer, pointed out that if a woman leaves her job because of harassment it can be called Constructive Dismissal; if she is sacked for resisting she can bring it before a Tribunal as unfair dismissal. However; the case must be proved before the Tribunal and this can be an insurmountable obstacle in some cases as the Sex Discrimination Act can be interpreted as judges see fit.

In the USA some women ouv vouul OUT of 874 public bodies surveyed recently by the women at all on 304. The percentage of women members on the various committees varied from ministry to ministry, but was generally around 20%.

The EOC is full of bureaucratic good ideas to increase the number of women. But as long as the system of running the state through hundreds of committees of upper class worthies continues, it is difficult to imagine much good result.

The London fare rises imposed by the Law Lords hit practically everyone, but it turns out that they hit women harder.

Just over half of London women with full-time jobs go to work on public transport, but only 35% of the men do. Half the women in full-time jobs, earned. less than £100 a' week (1981 figures), while only 15% of the men did.

One London woman in four is 'head of a household'. • example of how women lower pay and worse jobs, even when there is formal equality, comes from London again.

Among ILEA primary school teachers, 80% are women. But only 54% of primary school head teachers are women - despite the fact that women teachers were on average just as qualified as men.

Nationwide, average earnings for women teachers were £5,726 and for men The level of general emancipation can be gauged by the position of women, wrote Marx and Engels, echoing Fourier.

Within capitalism that principle translates into the rule that the more prosperous and fully developed the capitalist society, the higher the proportion of women in waged work (or recorded as seeking waged work).

The variations, as recent report shows,. are quite large éven among relatively advanced capitalist countries. In Denmark, 45% of women are in waged work or recorded as seeking it; in the US, 40%; in ireland 18% and in Spain 20%.

Britain ranks relatively high at 35%.

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Organiser, 19 August 198? Page

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WOMEN'S FIGHTBACK

Equal Opportunities Com- mission, there were no