Last week, figures produced by the Department of Employment showed that women's earnings are little over one half of men's carnings.
With only 12 munths to the deadine taid down by the Equal Pay Act. women workers are right to fecl sceptical about equality for women. In empineering for example - where 30% of workers are women- - it has been estimaled that in July of this year the cash differential between women and men workers was greater than it was four yoars ago.
So, should we be conned into acoepting Labour's social contract in return for a promised land of women's equality? The answer must be a res ounding no! The promises are a mirage which conceal the real roots of women's oppression.
The Equal Pay Act seeks to 'give equal treatment as regards terms and conditions for like or similar work or work rated equivalent'.
Already, many employers have taken a leaf from the book of their Common Market partners in trying to bypass the Act. Many have regr aded jobs into categories like light" or "heavy' work. With traditional prejudices about a woman's capabilities, women will end up at the bottom of the grading pile. TECHNOLOGY Other methods of lessening the impact of the Act are suggested by the latest Department of Empor ment News: 'to use existing emp]oyees more, and to benefit from job evaluation schemes which "fucilitate technological change. So employers are being encouraged to hide behind the Equal Pay Act when the wave of unemployment hits the workforce in the new year.
More fundamentally, the Equal Pay Act is totally incapable of tackling the basis of the unequal position of women at work. As long as women are enslaved in their roies as mother and all-providing wife, the quest for equal conditions at work will be futile.
PRIMACY The primacy of these roles for women means that educational attainment, satisfying jobs outside the home, and social responsibility for the raising of children are secondary considerations. They only surface when it serves capitalism's interests (for example in war time) or as a result of women's struggles.
During the war there were twice the present number of state provided nurseries. The proposed education cutbacks will place even the present meagre facilities under attack.
With a lack of social childcare facilities and inadequate contraception and abortion provisions, women are tied to child-rearing. Employers use these home commitments to stamp women as unreliable and in this way exclude them from the betler paid jobs which are evaluated on the basis of respoasibility.
Another area where the joh evaluation schemes Equal Pay Act- give men a head start is in the sphere of education. Jods are goided on the dass of stil complexity and level of training required, With only 7% of girls who enter employment receiving apprenticeships (compared to 42% of boys) and with only 15% of day release places going to girls, the basis of IN work: "ESCAPE'? calls for 'nationat unity' are used in the interests of the ruling class, But it's more difficult to see why appeals to save the family are made in the same breath. After all, family life might seem to many to be an all too brief escape from the depressing monotony and pressures of But what is the state of the family when the government-funded Family Service Unit can write jn its creatively quarterly journal that they 'feel it important to differentiate between sporadic battering, which can be regarded as part of a normal marriage, and more persistent beating?
The idea that the family is a welcome escape" is at best a half truth. Close ties develop between be done privately. Just think of the time wasted when in every street hundreds of women are doing their own washing and their own cooking! How much casier it would be if the work was organised enflectively. This set-up is not only totally inefficient, it aiso means hundreds of women are wasting time doing boring, mabiotonous tasks which could be wed DEPENDENCE The other central aspect of the family is that women are dependent on a man's wage, particularly when
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