Even where women do manage to get equal pay under the Act, it will be in the unskilled and poorly paid jobs- in areas like nursing. domestic work trades, where intensive fights have been necessary to resist low pay. In these jobs, the attitude that women's work outside the home is oniy for luxuries is coupled with the fact that this work is an extension of home tasks to justify poor conditJons, menial work and poor pay.
Since the Equal Pay Act was drafted in 1970, these situations have been widely criticised. It was hoped that the Labour Party anti-discrimination proposals would hetp to fill in some of these gaps. But for thosr who had illusions in the Labour Government's commitment to women's liberation, the Government's White Paper will be a nasty shock.
The White Paper tackles sex dis crimination as if it were merely a matter of tradition, custom and prejudice' (paragraph 16) It does not even ask the question why this tradition, why this custom or this prejudice?
As a resuit, it completely fails to grasp the nettle: that these pre judices, customs und traditions are rooted in a general division of the sexes in society in which women come off worse and capitaliso benefits.
In the real battle for quality. women don't come up simply ag ainst attitudes. They meet real matcrial obstacles -like being a full time housekeeper or mother with no independent source of income, with no means to overcome Lite day to day responsibilities for childcare, and with restricted access to akilled and better paid jobs.
OBSTACLES The White Paper proposes no solutions to get over these obstacles. On the contrary, it take special care so praised by the co distinguish between discrimination on grounds of sex and marriage in from cleve ren materia probier:
"It will not apply to differences of treatment made for any other reason c.g. because a potential employee is not suitably qualified for a particular job, or because a potential borrower lacks sufficient financial workers Tor the capitalists, or the distributive ination. crected. possible basis.
LIMITED GAINS the abstract and discrimination arising Charter campaign can be built up children and parents in the family. -but because they are forced to live together, The personal relations of both children and adults are re stricted and twisted by the tamily. Often it serves to cut then off Trom wider social relations and narrows their view of socicty On top of this, the family has an economic lusk to perform for the capitalists. The woman does the work to keep the capitalists with a workforce: she cooks, cleans and launders the clothes of her hushand land herself. And she also prepares a new generation of From the point of view of the standing or creditworthiness" (puragraph 33): and the fact that someone is a full time mother with no independent source of income will be a legitimate ground for discrimThe anti-discrimination propesals are the Labour Government's res La totally pathetic one to the wave of women's struggles that has built up over the last few years. They are meant as letle more chan a vote catcher for Labour, and will Jo little to assist the types of strugeles which women will still have to launch if they are to break down the walls of sex discrimination which capitalison has so carefully But the Equal Pay Act is a alightly different kettle of fish, and should definitely not be ignored by militants. It is, as we have shown, totally inadequare. and women workers will bave to rely on their own struggles to make any headway on this front as well. However the Act can be ased to encourage such struggles and to help unily them on the widest A broadly based national to organise action to ensure that the limited gains of the Act are put into practice now. Similatiy. women trade unionists can be readily won to the need to take action to crose up the loopholes in the Act through which the cm- and oppression Ci Toys like this work to educate girls that thair role in life is in the home as wits and mother a very early age.
they bave children. The rules fur social securily benefits for single mothers are based on the assump tion that women are financially dependent upon men. The S5 inspector only has to prove that a woman is ployers will try to wriggle. It will also be possible to ectend the stru geles which grow up to secure immediate implementation and strict caforcement of the Act to fight against problems such as the chronie low pay from which women suffer, which are not covered by the Act. NURSERIES Moreover a militant and united campaign around the question of Equal Pay would raise the whole question of women's oppression in the labour movement, and help educate both men and women workers about the necessity to tight it, le would create a favourable situation in which to get the lahour movement to back struggles which strike at the root of women's oppression, such as the Ealing campaign for increased state-provided EUTS CLICHINGS The key to all these strugales is direct aczion by the working class -but the Labour Government mist not be let off the hook. Are they prepared ro let the bosses exploit the loupholes in the Equal Pay Act? Or will they support the struggles women workers launch to seal them up? The Labour Government claims to represent the werking ciuss, and is in otfice because of the support or millione ar wanting people. Women workers -like every other sectinn of the working class — must insist that it dolivers the goods and places its weight behind their struegies against capitalist oxploitation
aping repularly with a man -not en that the man in actually giving et moncy - to have her benefits ut off, A sexual and emotional -lationship is automatically assumed » involve cash.
After the last war the booming apitalist economy had a massive eed for labour, particularly in light dustry, food processing, services ad clerical jobs. Women were rused into the workforce with the eip of a massive propaganda job y the capitalist press. The propoion of women over 15 working utside the home leapt from 27% • 1951 to 51% in 1970.
The majority of these women re married. They thus do two jobs or the capitalists: one directly at sir workplace, and the other directly - at home. These two bs can't really be separated. When a woman demands equal ay at her place of work, for exmpie, she is often challenging the each lea that her first responsibility is a the home and her job is only emporary (for "pin money 1 This ind of challenge thus rejects the lea that the man is the only breadinner and that the wonten is just * 'dependant"
Because the two jobs of women can't be separated it means that the capicalists were in a contradictory position in the war years, They wanted women to work in the munitions industry, but also recognised the importance of the job women did in the home. Under these circumstances, the state began to provide nurseries and subsidised restaurants so that women would be better able to move in to the workforce.
Of course after the war mone than half of the nurseries and all of the restaurants were closed down. This was because they were never opened in the interests of the working class -but only because they served the immediate interests of the capitalists.
RECENT SURVEY A recent survey has shown that London boroughs provide day nursery places for only 1% of children under 5. Employers who need female labour often find it far more convenient to organise the shiftwork to suit women's home responsibilities, rather than providing facilities to case the burden of those responsibilities.
So long as women are working part-time or on special shifts the question of security of employment, equal pay and other benefits can casily be avoided by employers. And the organisation of a complex shift system for women doesn't involve any major disruption of production -most women are on unskilled jobs, so it doesn't matter if the women on the job keep changing.
Only when women begin to think of themselves as full members of the labour force will it be more difficult for the bosses to keep them in meat 'industrial ghettos" This will come more rapidly if ily.
family have not been opened, in DON in the family, not to free women up the family.
school children weren't learning properly in schools because they hadn't-been prepared at home into an area normally the responsibility of the family. movement ignoring their light. demands for equal pay are coupled with action to take the private tasks of household labour our of the fam But the doors leading to women's freedom from dependence on the spite of the increasing numbers of women in employment and higher education. The state has intervened from domestic burdens, but to prop For example, at a time when skilled labour is necessary for the capitalists, it was realised that many This waste of potential skilled labour had to be stopped. The Tory Government thus decided to step Their scheme was to provide extra nursery school provisions in "deprived" areas. But does this plan The men have actively worked against us. One of our own union memhers, one of the men, helped to break the sil-in by smashing down the door. It's been terrible; we're really disgusted!"
These are the words of a woman shop steward from the Salford Electrical Instruments (SED) factory at Heywood, near Manchester, interviewed during the recent struggle for equal pay. It illustrates the frustration felt by so many women, sick of hearing from their fellow male workers that women are not militant cnough; sick that when they take matters into their own hands, this action is not taken seriously by the trade unions or by the men.
A struggle by male workers at Fords, for example, attracts national attention, But all too often women workers are left to fight in isolation, give women any more independence? Not at all. All it will do is to ensure that future generations of workers will be a bit more up to the current standards that capitalists require.
This type of state intervention in the family is not new. During the Boer War, mass medical inspec tions were carried out to ensure the quality of army recruits. The 'unworkmanlike state of the working class shocked the ruling class. More and more attention began to be paid to the 'efficiency of the lamily. particularly of the wife.
WELFARE STATE The welfare state is part of this Its aim has been to aid the family, not to take over the family. Major aspects of legislation -including tax and insurance Acts- have been wor- class ked out to back up the family as a For example, the Labour Government's new pension plan calculates women's pensions on the basis of against the toolmakers by saying that they would not be out of a job if it were not for the strikers. The women have made it cicar that they do not the best 15 yean of employment If a woman hasn't been in full em ployment for 15 years, her payment is based upon the best years of her husband! This may be a step forwar Sor women in financial terms. But underlying it is a clear attempt to glue the family unit more firmly to grther.
More recently there is an indication that the welfare state is beginning to puil out of the family, but at the same time ensuring that the esseitial tasks get done. The coon omic crisis is making it impostible for the state to provide the finances Thus through progresaive sounding policies such as 'community care, the state is calling on community proups to tackle the care of the elderly, the mentally handicapped and the sick.
Women are thus being pulled in two different directions + into the workforce as cheap, flexible labour, and in to the home as a safety net for all these who fall out of the disintegrating welfare state.
WORKERS' MOVEMENT Any attempts by women to challenge this pull -raised either at the place of work or outside it -must therefore tackle both aspects of women's oppression and exploitation, And the workers' movement must give its full backing to these challenges — incloding struggles for increased state provided nursery facilities, abortion and contraception, as well as thou around equal pay and matemity benefits Only through the combined weight of the organised working -fighting alongside women's liberation groups, tenants assoc iations, anti-fascist committees, claimants unions and any other groups willing to take action will the fight for the liberation of WIS HOTSHE
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