[in struggle What about low. pay? Six million…]
Socialist Organiser1983 1983-04-28Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 6 →
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in struggle What about low. pay?
Six million workers earn less than the average male manual earnings (currently about £90 a week). The majority of these are women.
The Labour Party says "We will discuss the possibility of a statutory minimum wage with the TUC". . A very high proportion of these low-paid workers are in the public sector, yet there is no programme for raising public sector wages for school cleaners, dinner staff, health workers.
The major unions opposed the minimum wage at the TUC; and a NUPE-sponsored resolution to Labour Party annual conference was defeated.
Any strengthening of the Equal Pay Act which doesn't deal with the horizontal division of labour will still leave women segregated in the low-paid sectors of the economy. Until the unions show the same willingness to organise women as men, there is little hope that a Labour government would "take action together with the trade unions against low pay" ('New Hope').