Search Society at Karlsruhe and st German Steinkohlen ElektrizG (STEAG). In April 1974, and the Uranium Enrichment ation of South Africa siened a it to carry out a joint feasibilfy of two uranium enrichment th Africa's nuclear programme receiving aid from the United inder a 50-year bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement signed by shington and Pretoria governin 1957. A bid by the Genertric company, together with nd Dutch firms, to build Africa's first nuclear power was defeated by a French num last week. But General : still hopes to supply $65 worth of uranium fuel a year two reactors.
MBS than Steele, the Guardian's ston correspondent, reported lay that: "Together I have the capacity to supply oducts enough plutonium to 00 atomic bombs of the type estroyed Nagasaki in 1945. ough South Africa has not he nuclear arms proliferation South African officials are nt that the Nuclear Regulammission in Washington, as the sole authority to apprsale, will give permission.' dangers to the people of hat would flow from atomic s in the arsenal of the racist •Pretoria can hardly be overWomen from the Trico factory in Brentford on the march last week-see front page mation Services. The results? the Act are legion: women's wages.' Women This is meant to be the 'era of equality for women' in Britain. But that hollow rhetoric is thoroughly exposed in the latest anti-report from Counter InforWomen have become an increasingly important part of the labour force in recent years. The number of - from 7.3 milion in 1954 teami • from 7.3 million in 1954 to 9 million in 1974: "The social role and conditioning of women facilitated their entry into the jobs that arose with the growth of the service sector.' * In October 1975 full-time women workers were averaging only 57 per cent of full-time men's earnings -£34.19 against £59.58 a week. * One-third of all women workers earned less than £30 per week in 1975, compared with less than 2.3 per cent of men on such low wages. * In 1975 women were earning less relative to men than in 1950.
UNEQUAL Even the full implementation of the Equal Pay Act would only raise women's average weekly earnings as a percentage of men's by a few points from the present level of 57.4 per cent. But the ways round 'As long as a wage grade is not specifically called male or female, the employers can go on paying women in one grade a lower rate then men in another. The bakery workers agreement of December 1974 rearranged the grading system, dropped the words male and female, pushed all the women into the lower grades, and actually widened Having serviced their families at home. women repeat their domestic tasks at work. And increasingly that work is becoming part-time. Over three million out of 8.7 million women - more man one tree - are part-time compared with one in twenty men.
Part-time work is supposed to be 'convenient' when you've got a family to look after as well. It's also only too convenient for the employers, who get a pliable workforce which can be taken on and chopped at will at small cost.
In 1974 only 54 per cent of part time women were covered by sick pay schemes, only 5 per cent were in occupational pension schemes, and only 1.3 per cent were undergoing training. Just how useful part-time women are to the employers is shown by the fact that they continue to increase as a proportion of all workers.
The unions have done little or nothing to challenge this situation. Photo: CHRIS DAVIES (Report)
Yet between 1962 and 1975 the total membership of the TUC rose by 2,050,849 to 10,363,724 -64 per cent of the increase representing women workers. Women's membership rose by 91 per cent over the period, whilst men's in contrast rose by only 11 per cent.
Basically the unions themselves subscribe to the idea that a woman's place is in the home and her role in the workforce is secondary. The TUC's leaflet on its aims for women at work makes the following point:
'Unions say employers must accept the need for women to work the hours which will enable them to meet their commitments as mothers or assist them to care for their elderly dependents.' FORCED BACK A few noises may be made about equal pay now, out on the basic right of women to have a job nothing has changed in the officials' outlook. Seventy-six percent of women who are employed are also housewives. Three out of five regard their pay as crucial to the family budget, as a recent survey in Wom an's Own revealed. Eighty per cent of women who lose their paid work get nothing from the dole or social security.
Women are being forced back into the home at a time of dropping living standards and cuts in services. The lid is coming down:
"Despite women's hostility and resistance, the role of housewife as welfare agent for society is being reestablished. This is happening in a period when the absolute decline in living standards has made that very role more arduous. Women in the 1970s are expected to see the promise of independence and equality shattered at the altar of a dubious economic policy, and the inex orable logic of a system that will use them and discard them for its short term profit.' * Women Under Attack, Counter Information services anti-report No. 15. Price 45p plus 10p p&p, from Red Books, 97 Caledonian Road, London N1.