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Labour

Few benefit from Socred pay ‘equity’

By SUSAN LOCKHART

“We want to send a strong signal that pay equity is not an indulgence or a frill, but rather an entitlement that is essential if women are to achieve full social and eco- nomic independence.”

With those grand words the Social Credit government of B.C. announced on Sept. 11, a pay equity program that gives very little to a very few and which makes a mockery of women’s struggle for eco- nomic justice.

The Socreds seem to have recognized the existence of the wage gap between what male workers are paid and what their female co-workers are paid, but they are only acknowledging the narrowest edge of the gap. Women workers in the B.C. Gov- emment Employees Union eam an average 21.3 per cent less than men in the BCGEU, but the national average is usual- ly recognized at 31 per cent to 40 per cent. The largest wage gaps exist in the private sector especially amongst the unorgan- ized.

The Socred pay equity plan, which they have sub-titled “It’s Workplace Fairness,” will not be legislated. It will be a one-shot wage adjustment (separate from increases gained through bargaining) bestowed upon a chosen few (11 - 13,000 BCGEU workers in female-dominated classifica- tions). The Socreds estimate that the pro-

Labour Forum

gram will cost $40 million. Taking that down to the paycheque level, on average it will give the lucky 13,000 an extra $1,000 each in the first year and $692.30 in each of the next three years. That means a whop- ping $26 per pay cheque (before taxes!) to compensate for generations of unfair wage deficiencies to hundreds of thousands of women.

As the Hospital Employees Union Secretary-Business Manager, Carmela Al- levato stated: “The Social Credit govern- ment’s pay equity policy is a cynical at- tempt to obtain the maximum political mileage from a minimum amount of social justice.” There is nothing in this policy that will affect real change for even those few women workers who fall under this pro- gram. There is nothing to compel other

employers, even other public sector em-:

ployers, to address pay equity issues. There is not even a-nod to the other aspects of women’s economic inequality: inadequate social assistance, too low minimum wages, childcare needs, lack of educational oppor- tunities, inadequate paid parental leave, amongst many others.

That leaves us with the real motives

behind the Socred’s sudden concern for pay equity: pressure on the BCGEU during this time of master agreement negotiations and election fever. Angle Schira, B.C. Fed- eration of Labour secretary-treasurer, stated: “The Social Credit government was merely conducting negotiations in public with the BCGEU.”

The government program is contingent on the provision that “negotiations with the union are on target.” Ifthe BCGEU doesn’t co-operate with the employer’s negotia- tion schedule, then the Socreds will no longer believe in pay equity! The other knife being wielded at the BCGEU-B.C. government bargaining table is that this plan is tied to job evaluation, a major point of contention between the parties. Ob- viously pay equity is on the agenda for this round of bargaining and John Shields and his ‘BCGEU negotiating team should be congratulated for taking a lead in this struggle. But they are being undermined by the employer’s unethical move — expos- ing bargaining table tactics while they are still being discussed in camera and attempting to use the public as unwitting allies against the union.

Women are tired of being treated as second class workers. Everywhere women are standing up and saying: “We want a fair, livable wage; we want our labour recognized by salaries that will let our families live in dignity.” The Social Credit government heard these demands and gave

_ B.C. women an inadequate, temporary

program for a very few workers, but with a great deal of fanfare and front page head- lines.

B.C. women will not be fooled long by this obvious election-inspired ploy. Eco- nomic justice for women will be achieved, not with cheap theatrics, but with a com- prehensive program, as a result of inten- sive consultations with women and their unions and organizations. Economic jus- tice will be achieved when there are no wage gaps, when poverty no longer exists and when women and men workers earn a dignified, livable wage.

Susan Lockhart is a researcher with Trade Union Research Bureau. TURB is sponsoring a seminar on pay equity on Tuesday, Sept. 25 in the upstairs board- room at the Maritime Labour Centre, ILI Victoria Drive, 7:30 p.m. All inter- ested persons are invited to hear David Fairey, labour economist, in a presen- tation on “Attacking the Wage Gap: the Use of Statistical Methods.” For more info: 255-7386.

USWA looks to the environment

By JOHN HUMPHREY “In the old days, we thought that smoke

meant jobs, that pollution was a by-product of prosperity. And that if the air smelled funny, and the mill killed all the fish in the river, such was the price of progress.”

The opening word of the Environment Task Force report to the Steelworkers inter- national convention in Toronto earlier this month signalled a major policy shift. The ensuing “debate” was elaborately stage- managed from the platform; there were panel discussions, multi-screen videos, glossy background documents, a Donahue Show-style audience plunge, and a cameo speech by Stephen Lewis. Only briefly, at the very end, did a shop floor voice disturb the mikes, denouncing the impact on jobs of U.S. coke oven emission controls.

But, despite the top-down format, the progressive direction of change was unmis- takable. After all, Steelworkers have often been popularly identified with hard-hatted defence of their smokestacks, and more recently with rearguard action against asbes- tos and uranium control.

“We cannot serve our members by ignor- ing environmental issues,” declares the Fu- ture Directions report entitled Our Children’s World. “We cannot protect them by pretending to resist change. Our mission is to adapt to change and to channel it for the

long-term benefit of our members and all working people.”

Citing the experience of plants and mills throughout North America, the report wades to the heart of the jobs versus environment issue. An “either-or” approach is denounced as the boss’s age-old blackmail: jobs or safe- ty, jobs or pay equity, jobs or minimum wage, jobs. or.development controls. In- stead, it points out that cleaning up creates jobs: “Someone has to build it ... to install it ... to operate it “ to maintain it.” And not cleaning up jeopardizes jobs: there aren’t now too many openings for chemical work- ers in Bhopal.

Another key point made is that invest- ment in state-of-the-art environment-friend- ly technology, such as direct steelmaking processes which bypass coke ovens and blast furnaces, is the foundation of future competitiveness and long-term job security. If your boss refuses to upgrade his equip- ment, do you feel better or worse about your job prospects?

Finally, the report comes to grips with the reality that “some plants will close no matter

_ what we do. It does not help these workers

to argue that other jobs will be created some- where else in some other industry ... that some other worker is benefitting from their sacrifice.” The Steelworkers conclude that, here, “the only answer is to link environment issues with economic justice.” In the short

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8 Pacific Tribune, September 17, 1990

term, that means legislated income protec- tion and retraining for the victims of clean- up regulations. But in the longer term, a quasi-Marxist perspective is adopted.

Bosses, the report points out, constantly search for ways to make others pay part of the real costs of production. By refusing to improve working conditions, thereby increasing accidents and illness, they force workers, the community, to pick up the tab. Similarly, they make neighbours, society at large, the world, bear the environmental cost. “Pollution is pumped into the air and water, toxic chemicals are allowed to es- cape, greenhouse and ozone-depleting gases are generated because the cost to the en- vironment never appears in the company balance sheet,” the report states. “The com- pany’s concern is its own bottom line, not the overall cost to society.”

The political struggle, according to Our Children’s World, is “stop the company from dumping its costs on us.” A graphic local example is the current USWA strike at

the Uniroyal Chemical plant in Guelph, —

where the company is demanding conces- sions to pay for the forced clean-up of a leaky, poorly-designed waste site. The prob- lem is not just local: “Some companies may try to avoid strong environmental regula- tions by moving overseas. But the answer is not to repeal our own laws, any more than the answer to global competition is to cut our own wages to poverty levels.”

A multi-point action program underlines that workers are in a strong position to col- lectively monitor and fight for environmen- tal quality. Several speakers underlined the direct link with the fight for a safe work- place, and called for the right of “whistle- blowers” to refuse environmentally hazard- ous work, and be protected from employer retaliation.

All in all, a welcome breath of fresh air

is blowing through the Steelworkers’ Union.

John Humphrey is a steelworker in Toronto.

Postal cuts protested

Continued from page 1 ment and Canada Post saying to all

those people, not even having a repre- sentative on the hill to receive the petitions, saying they were going to consult with the people.

“And on the same day they were saying they’re going to consult, there’s an ad in the newspaper saying they’re going to sell the post office,” Parrot said.

Mary Otto-Grieshaber, an Agassiz farmer, reported that citizens in four municipalities are taking Canada Post to court over post office closures.

“We must shout our outrage, we must organize and we must fight back,” she said.

“By the time we are finished, (Prime Minister) Brian Mulroney will be finished,” .Otto-Grieshaber de- clared. .

In an interview later, Otto- Grieshaber commented that links be- tween Canada Post’s unionized emp- loyees and rural Canadians should be forged.

She noted the protest last summer by residents of Westwold, B.C., who helda postal vehicle hostage in protest over the closure of the community post office. Service there has been reduced from 27 hours to four hours a week, out of the local Legion hall.

“There are conservative people there, mainly non-union. But I believe they are taking another look what the government is doing.” Unions should take the opportunity to make links with rural people, she said.

She said her local group, File Z, is separate but that she maintains con- nections with Rural Dignity.