From all reports it is clear that the TUC has agreed that the government should not enforce the target laid down in the Equal Pay Act of 90 per cent of male earnings for female workers by the end of 1973. Thus the trade union leadership has once more demonstrated its consistency on this issue - in consistently selling out on the question. This deal by the TUC should not be seen in isolation from its general role in workers' struggles. Operating entirely within the framework of the capitalist system, the TUC is incapable of consistently defending even the most basic interests of the working class. It is constantly susceptible to the type of argument to which it has now bowed -that it would be against the interest of the country" to bring into effect this clause of the Equal Pay Act because it would be inflationary. To accept such arguments is in fact to accept that the working class must pay the price for the continued good working of a system which profits them (unlike the employers) not at all.
It is important not to exaggerate the significance of the Equal Pay Act, however, even though it is necessary to condemn this further retreat by the TUC. We should have no illusions that the Act will, when implemented, actually bring about equal pay in any real sense. "Equal pay for equal work" is totally meaningless as long as the employers decide what is equal work. Without a basic minimum wage, also, equal pay will mean nothing to those women who work in factories employing mainly female labour. One factor which makes it very much easier for the trade union leadership to drop the question of equal pay is that they know that in this they have the tacit support of most rank and file male workers. The justifications used by male workers for not fighting on this issue are various: women are "incapable" of doing the same work as men; women have protective legislation and therefore do not work the same conditions as men; omen are not the breadwinners they only earn pin money; and so on. But whatever the excuse, it all comes down to the same thing -the working class is prepared to support a division in its ranks, a basic division which has its roots in pre-history but is used as a weapon against the class under capitalism. The working class, instead of realising that its strength lies in itsanity, helps actively to perpetuate this division.
This division does not exist simply because women don't receive equal pay with men. Equal pay cannot be separated from the question of equal opportunity, equal oppor tunity cannot be separated from the different roles assigned by society to men and women the women to rear the next generation of workers, the men to bring home the weekly wages. Until the role of the family in capitalist society, and the position of women in society as a whole is understood, then this division which harms the interests of the working class as a whole will continue Although the wage packet that a wife brings home each week may be an essential part of the income for that family, because the breadwinner is "traditionally' male the women workers does not see her position in the labour force in the same way as a man. Even where she does (one sign that this is growing is the increasing number of women in the trade unions) her active participation in the unions is severely limited by her respon sibilities to her family, It is accepted that it is the woman's role to look after the children the man's to go to union meetings. RANK AND FILE All these questions must be taken up by the rank and file in the trade unions. The right to work or full maintenance should be the right of all workers, not just men; no redundancies' must apply in every section of the work force. Use must be made of the advent of the Equal Pay Act to show that this will in no way bring about equal pay and that the only way this will happen is for the rank and file to take up this question in a serious way. There must be no increase in differentials in any wage agreement (most Common Market Countries have had legislation on equal pay similar to ours for many years and the differentials are still increasing); there must be a clear understanding that equal pay is inextricably linked to the question of equal opportunity and training; There must be a fight for a minimum wage for all workers. For too long women workers have been an expendable part of the labour force; the labour force itself must actively struggle to show that they are For further material on the question of Equal Pay/ Equal Work, subscribe to Socialist Woman (48p per year - 6 issues) at 182 Pentonville Road, London N