from Marpsaret Coulson
cn 550 delegates from 22 Unions and 10 Trades Councils attended a very successful conference on Equal Pay in Glaspow on March 22: it was orrenised by the Scottish TUC. The conference was preceeded by a demonstration in Glasrow arranged by a local committee of NJACCWER and calling for equal pay ani ricvhts for women. The mood of the conference was militant with the views and demands voiced from the floor often outstripping those from the platform, »pesakers included Marie Patterson, Miss B.C, Kent (Clerical and Salaried Staff Assoc.), Joan O'Connell (DATA) Miss R. Stephen, Joan O'Connell set the strugrle in a wider perspective, referring to historical and international developments; and to the social and economic exploitation of women, eomparing their position to that of black workers. But the most rousing speeches came during the discussion periods, to which Agnes MacClean (AEF) made the first - and very forceful - contribution. She was able to point to the success of militant action; in her work they had been able to achieve averares in engineerin? of £17 -£19 with higher rates being nezotiated. She pointed out that discriminetion against women started at a very early age; often there seemed to be more public concern about the riphts of animals than of women. The importance of a militant movement, clear in its objectives, was frequently stressed; of getting more women involved in Trade Unions; of involving more men - the Press had tried to show this to be a war between the sexes - but the fight was with the employers for decent conditions for all (like retirement at 60 for men and women), and against prevailing social attitudes. The resolution put to the meeting called on the Government to ratify the ILO Convention (100), to take legislative action to assist the est- | ablishment of equal pay for work of equal value: and asked that a deputation from H the Woman's. Advisory Committee meet Barbara Castle so that the views of the Conference could be made known to the Government, Many delesates would have supported | a stronger resolution, but an addendum was put asking (STUC General Council) that two representatives from the meeting should join any deputation, and it was unanimously agreed that Agnes MacClean and Mergeret Fennick (Jute Flax & Allied Trades) should be the representatives, *#2There will be a meeting on Sunday 20thApril at 2.5 in the Trades Council Club 61, Carlton Place, Glasgow, to seb up a Glaszow brench of NJACOWER, #sese
by Margaret Coulson How often have you had to waste time at work because things heve been stupidly organised, have had to look busy when there was nothing to do - or had to carry out meaningless tasks because there was no real work? And how often have you seen materials needlessly wasted? or tadly mismanaged? How often have you been frustrated and exhausted by unreasonable conditions at work? And you've thought that you could tell them how to run things in a more sensible and humane way... But who determines how work shall be arranged, and evaluated, the conditions in which it takes place? In industry today such decision taking tends to be far removed from the actual work situation, often justified as the "objective" and "scientific" advice of experts. Most women could make useful contributions to such decisions where they work; perheps with the resurgance of the movement for women's rights increasing rumbers will come to feel that they could and shovld do so, But in the system under which we're employed workers sren't expected to be able to contribute in this way - workers, and especially women are encouraged to believe that they've neither the ability or the right to determine or control their-work situation, One important contribution of the movement for workers control is in rejecting these defeatist beliefs. This movement has grown rapidly over the past five or six years and at the conference in Sheffield on March 29 -30 about 1000 delegates are ex= pected to attend. In the context of current industrial and technolorical changes the campaign for workers control is of vital importance: =- to defend workers rights against both government and employers ( incomes policy, the government white paper In Place of Strife and the Ford dispute of the esrly part of March all illustrate this need very dearly); and to extend these rirhts; and to develop longer term alternatives to the present system. Growing interest in the workers control movement has been most significant in the most advanced industrial sectors. Just as it was women from this sector who sparked off the most recent develppments in the movement for women's rirhts - the sewing machinists at Fords fiehting for the recopnition of their skill. But the majority of women are not employed in this sector. Over 62% of women work in establishments of less than 100 employees; about 3/h of them are not in unions; and of course the majority of them receive very low rates of pay - either because they do not get equal pay for equal work (about 3 million women) or because they work in jobs traditionally classified as "womens work" and poorly paid irrespective of the skills involved (about another 3 million women). In industries which rely mainly on femle labour women have te saferuard and extend their richts at work and the perspectives of the workers control campairn have a direct relevance in spite of the particular difficulties outlined above, The more reneral demands = for equality of pay and work, fow decent conJitinns and reasonable hours, for adequate provisions for children whfle their parents work, for equal opportunities and legal rights - mst draw ideas from the workers control movement too. And the common inequalities which women share enable them to unite across the traditional industrial union boundaries; the NJACWER already indicates the possibilities of such unity. It's now 80 years since the TUC passed its first resolution on equal pey, but if women remain largely unorganised and inactive the rate of progress over the next KO years seems unlikely to speed up. One important factor in extending the campaign for women's rights (not just in work but in all spheres) is th: emphasise that
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they ars rights, If it would cost between £600 and £1000 million to give equal pay for equal work now, then this is the extent to which women are currently subsidising the profits of their employers (and of course the subsidy is greater than this because of the poor rates of pay for “womens work"). And the richt to decent conditions - if men employed on London tranepcrt buses get sick pay after one years employment, then this is the right of women employees also (not.five years later as is now the case). As the demand for, and the right of women to work extends so the needs of children mst be recognised and proper nursery and nursory school and after school provisions made, The demand for such provision is basic to the extension of women's rights in work and in society. At home a woman may have more scope to arrange housework herself - but probably its sutomatically assumed to be hor job, and an unpaid one... (and she may have to suffer for her husband's frustrations with his own work too), In so many ways we know that women are exploited to a greater extent than any male worker, and we mist develop the struggle for our rights on all possible fronts in recognition of this. Women in our society tend to be taught that they met control themselves rather than seek to control their environment. —A socialist women's campaign mist counter such teaching; the ideas of the workers contrcl movement have a double significance for us here,