Pay &.
‘tonal Marxist Group (N.B. The following article was writte to a letter which appeared in BLACK DWARF arguing that wowen would only gein equal pay at the expense of the men. SOCIALIST WOudll felt that it should be answered in these pares.
porting the arsument that the
on in men's pay. However, anyone
this argument is a rehash
Hon-lHarxistea can perhaps be forgiven for sup winning of equal pey would lead to a reducti with any knowledge of Marxist economics will know of Lassalle's famous IROW LAW OF WAGES. Lagsalle formulated it like this: "The Iron economic law which under present-dey conditions, under the domination of supply and demand, determines the wnges of labour, is thi 3; that the average wage always romaine reduced to the neccessary subsis woicn required by a people according to ite habits, for the mai of and reproduction." (Gesamuclle Rden u. Schriften, III, 8.58)
r
ie Put another way this implics that thero is, under capitalisn » & given wage level which is basically wnalterable., Therefore attunpts to incronac it arc Long run useleses (the capitalist will manipulate prices or incresanc unemployment to teke back what has been won). ‘Taken to its logical conclusion, this theans that oll trede. union 2 i
Weeles are. a diversion and 2 weste of time, Lassalle, himsclf, drew this conclusion. Ingele had thia to say about, the subjec ".+«20ur pcople havi allowes the Lasgallean 'Lron law of wages! upon them, and this is based on a quite antiquated economic vaaee the worker only reccives on averaze 4 i the labour tm there are alwayn too many workers. Now ij roved in dc teil in CAFIT) that the lawe regulctins “Aare Vory compliceted, that sométimce onc ee and sometimes an ‘nother, according to circumstances, that therofore they are in no sense iron but on the contrary very clastic, and can by no méane be dismissed in a few words, os Lassalli in (Lotter to Bobel, 18-28 Merch 1875) Marx also oavaged the concept of the Iron Law of eecs in hie CRITIOQUR OF THE GOTHA PROGRAMME, Opponents of ugunl pey for woucn argue, just. like Lassalle, that beecrus only a given fund for WESSE any incrcasc in women's weogce is bound te 5 at the expenac of men's, +hey do not sccm to renlisc the fer ruaching implicetions of such an argunont. Why stop at women? If thio argument wurs correct it would be short-sighted for
AL ik any section of the working clase to try to ineriese ite lot. If this were the CEEG any section of workers which is underpsid would eleo only be able to incréasc its wages at the cxpense of other sections of the clarc, We should tell the agricultural
workors don't try to got higher wages. byvcn the Ford's strikers would hove to bo told to so back to work. To posc, thi oreumnt like this ia to. chow how ridiculous and renctionary it is. It is quite worthy of Enoch Powell (and similar in ceasence to some Tory utterances on trondc unions). Wu are tempted to think thet thu proponents of this point of view hide eortrin snti-fominian behind this "sconomic™ vi swpoint. It could be arqucd that th: question of wom n's wiges is differnt boenuse of the largo numbcr involvud. This no-wies ote round the objections because onc could niso argio that tradc unionists form a very large number of workcrs sé opposed to ynoreenincd workers. But be the ¢ as it may: how is the iron Law
Sos
of wages supposed to operate? Would th. capitalist rvcoup all the CEUTA Wages that he wes paying by jnercasing prices? Tf one concodus this argument then onu is back at the position of opposing all 5 crug@#l: 6 for inerunsed wages becausc the capitalist will rlwoye increase prices. The ectunl fact is thet the capitalist cannot ineresse prices at will and there is no known uconomic law which onables th. capitalist to put prices when wonun's wogce. co up but not whon men's go up. In this Sunes sconomices docs not discriminst. naninst womens Actually, tho struggle for all wage inerunzout is a struggle over the rate of axploitation (or in Marxist tems, the rate of surplus vuluc}, Herz analyse in great detail tie wy the class ctruggle aff setod the rate of cxploita a ond demonstrated b: "oud nll deubt that whilst trade union strugtle could not cdo away with cxploitr tion (only revolution csh Jo that) it could roducc it. Woman should strugelc for coucl pey with all their mischt. By £0 doine they arc, in vcono! ic terme, otrugzling +o rodies thoir rabe of uxploitatlon. The only people who will suffer by 2 militent fioeht for cqual pay ars the capitalists. If they try to recoup their losecs by attcclaing the stendards of oon Workers, it is up to the mn workers to fight back. Let no telk of th. iron lew of wages dcter any section of thy workin: clas: from sirugglc, lecst of all the doubly-uxploited womcn workorie
a SS Equal pay ia far from boing « yonlity in th. Common Maricct. Tho overags hourly woge sf * Wouen. ic inferior to that of a mans the ‘little diffcronce' is 1 franc in Italy, 1.04 francs in France, 1.52 francs in Beleium, 1.92 francs in Germany, 226 fracs in Holland, and 2,60 francs in Luxembourg (1 franc = 1 /8). Yet, in these six courtrics, therc are hore women than mon, Tho majority of those who work arc between 14 years old and 25 yoars old - why? An anewor ttny bo found in the fact thet certain firms (in Ttaly, in particular) strtc in the contract of their fomals cmployuve thet thoy will hove to give up thoir jobs whon thoy Marry.
Leamington: qual pry rights with men have ben won by a suction of 20 womcn on piecework rates at Industrial wouldings, a plastics plant here. At the.centro of the women's fight wes Vamy neviews, 4 plant convener and chaimman of The City Equal Pay Campeign Committec. Bufors he end a women shop steward began to pressure the sian: ;
wonent, women wore timed on 4 nicecwork rate agreed with a rate
(cont)
fixer in the normal way, but mon nutomitically recoivcd a third-more.
to 2a 62 a week risa,
wuet 2 it will be 3a Tid.
How wor On averag. it will riso this month to 35 3d, in May to 36
on will roccive the samc rate
sign committe, wad enthusiastically optimistic. "This ia an wml broak=throuch and re shall
can bo uxorted from
cortainly usc it as a levor both in other plante in the town,” phe saad, . "The most that success is almost entirel) duc to the within the factory. Outsice help trem tie wien siznificancc. Et has-rice rusolutions, welcome as they r-, ere aot formation of our canpaism committ.. that our rights, and this first wietory will five us
4 that individual trede wrion branch
It hao boun the all-city
nuaded boost to fight for
encouragument," she said,
Thy by Penny Simpson
Reprinted from Young Socialist Forum (Canada) Harch 19 It makes you burn every time you think about it: thcore “is only onc
a al a Qucboe you can sit down to a cheap gunl and a draught of becr = in a tavorn hut you can't, becausc you arc a wouan, von if you can't stand becr, it
yu DUI. It makes you think of all the rotten laws of Binet
aru stupid, irresponeibl. and infantile, no netter hew old they arc".
Pah
~, . 1 a te al a6 +
wouon that add un “te ‘Snmun ind to add insult to injury, they tull you you enn't avon hold a becr.
i say you co around with, at the
ela
of a man) or you can mooch off the badly rate of 60¢ = bottle. 4 pint of draught
1t 16 Dore
uver asked before. But the i up to the ond of the dcpressi out, and of course the rcactic
"Opcration Drink-In", =0 invasion of tha bigeost, most prestizcous town = Lo Gobulet.
rte ficlcs-on four that this was the invitetion of the Ligue dees Juunce Sociclictes to all. wonen to come and got thoir ri ic re Wuttered in intorvicws about prostitutes, and the nanagr of Le Gobolut declered that hu might serve as apple piv and eoffec, but no bucr. Whon wo arrived, marehine with our banncurs, slozens od rd fla more men L@Jure than woncn, it was cleer that everyone in the ta arguing for hours. Onc group of “cn poured ovt tha’ door with impr
q44 i advising that wo should go home to cur dishcs, Sut othore wore encourezcncnt.
Cops stood arcund norvously; the whole thing had become so popular that they couldn't stop us, The taverekcoper was nervous too: he was facing a $300.00 finu. We olbowed through the crowd et the door into the linkod ame of the waiters trying to push us beck, We blarcd "Pevorne Libr + Taverne Librc! Lee taverncs aux femmce: los fomice aux tavornes!" on our bullhorm and shoved back. Mon wore climbing on thoir chairs yelling, rinsing tho cow belis docking tha walls defiantly waving their mgs of beer at uss Woe pushed harder. Young men we had nover seen before renchoud out their hands to us, pullod un in under the waltcrs! aris and gave ue their beer, Bronda Zannis, chairman of tho YS/LJS, climbed onto a table top, mug in hand, to cxplain, "Where can we worun g0 if wo wart a good beer and some cheap food? We women carn luse money for doing the sano work as mon. Thon we aro forced to pay mort for becr and food. Mn enn go to the tavern if they wert to gct away Tron the homc, but we have.no place to go." Forecd cut by polic. threats, we held a rally on the doorstop to explain why wo were there, why the tavern is a burning injustic., wiy it is 2 symbol of all the institutionslised discrimination egninst womcn, and Why Wo orc sick and tircd of a systun that uscs ono half of hunnnity agninst the other. Tho action ondod with the thought that it was only the first of a fullesenlo war on discrimination against woncn in Qucbee, (Editorial notc: Thore arc still pubs in Britein which refuse te survo wonen and cvon nore infuriating (if that's po eeible) will refuse to sell woucn custcners a pint! — half pinte being moro ladyliku or sonuthing.., Give you any idcns?)