The history behind women's fight for comparable worth

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"Naturally you make less than the men, Miss Johrason safe for a woman to carry around that much money 16 SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 1988 U.S. Civil Rights Commission Chair Clarence Pendleton stated, "This is probably the looniest idea since Looney Tunes came on the screen." White House economist William Niskanen called it "a truly crazy proposal." Former Equal Employment Opportunities Commission head Eleanor Holmes Norton named it "the issue of the '80s." Labor attorney Winn Newman described it as "along with the Equal Rights Amendment, the litmus test of where people stand on women's rights."

What is this issue which has stirred such heated reactions? It's comparable worth— the theory that jobs of equivalent overall value to the employer or to society ought to be compensated equally even if the jobs are dissimilar in content.

Supporters and opponents of comparable worth agree on the statistics. Approximately 80% of all women workers are employed in 25 of the 450 occupational categories listed by the Department of Labor. The average wage of predominantly female occupations is lower than that of predominantly male occupations.

Gross average earnings of those women who work in predominantly male occupations are lower than those of men in these same occupations. Almost 25 years after passage of major federal legislation prohibiting sex and race discrimination, the pay gap between men and women remains.

Today women still earn approximately 64% of the wages of their male counterparts. The increase from the oft-quoted 59cent figure does not represent real gains on the part of women. Rather, it reflects the loss of better-paying predominantly male factory jobs through plant closings and massive layoffs and wage concessions wrested from many male workers.

Part of this wage gap can be explained by average hours worked, education, and seniority. However, researchers agree that even with all such mitigating circumstances considered, 20% to 40% of the wage gap can only be attributed to sexual discrimination.

Produce less surplus value?

Neoclassical economists argue that women earn less because their work is worth less. Margaret Jayko, a columnist for The Militant, a weekly newspaper published by the Socialist Workers Party, reaches a similar conclusion when she states that Marxist economics provides an explanation for the lower pay of these jobs (March 20, 1987).

Jayko claims that women are paid less because they produce less surplus value. She concludes that rather than calling for comparable worth, women's rights advocates should concentrate on demanding affirmative action.

Spokespersons for the Chamber of Commerce and other business groups add that women freely choose to work in lower wage occupations because of the "desirability" of the jobs.

The argument that certain jobs— coincidentally those with a large percentage of women workers—-fall on the low end of the pay scale because they're worth less ignores the fact that historically, as women have gained access to a particular job in large numbers, their pay rate has declined.

Between 1880 and 1910 clerical work went from a predominantly male to a predominantly female occupation. At the same time, relative pay rates plummeted.

Prior to World War II almost all bank tellers were white men. At that time this job served as a training ground for higherpaid banking jobs. Beginning with World War Il, as more women became bank tellers, the job changed into the low-paid, dead-end one it is today.

Recent studies show a decline in the average earnings of veterinarians and certain types of lawyers as more women enter these fields.

Although feminists use the terms "pay equity" and "comparable worth" interchangeably, some economists try to make a big distinction between these terms arguing that comparable worth is a bogus concept which goes against the market economy while pay equity, or equal pay for equal work, is something they support.

However, it wasn't that long ago that equal pay was regarded with the same disdain comparable worth is today. The arguments were similar. Women's work was somehow inherently worth less than men's. If women were willing to work for less, it would upset the balance of supply and demand to hire them for a better rate of pay.

Landmark suit

In 1975, the International Union of Electricians (IUE) brought suit on behalf of a group of Westinghouse workers claiming that their wages were determined by sex 51 2 $1.00 w..... .son. 2 cam:

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rather than skill.

The union showed that such discrimination went back at least to the 1930s by producing a 1939 manual which explained that each job would be evaluated by skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions. Then, women's jobs with the same point ratings and labor grade would be assigned a lower wage rate.

A 1945 investigation by the War Labor Board found that after this job evaluation, Westinghouse reduced female job rates by 18% to 20%.

The only change since the 1930s which the IUE discovered took place in 1965, when the company stopped categorizing jobs by sex and added four labor grades. However, this change was pretty transparent since almost all women's jobs were then assigned to the lower four labor grades.

Other companies tried to disguise their sex discrimination by using different job titles. Men were janitors; women were housekeepers or maids. Men were physicians' assistants or orderlies; women were nurses' aides. Men were warehousemen; women were shipping clerks.

It wasn't until the 1963 Equal Pay Act ·32% sivi 61 C • ST 52C wii askin. and the 1964 Civil Rights Act that such transparently discriminatory practices were outlawed. Even then, as the IUE case against Westinghouse shows, many major employers looked for ways to sidestep the law.

Job evaluation systems

Opponents of comparable worth argue that it's impossible to scientifically categorize jobs, that all attempts to determine which jobs are comparable are seriously flawed by personal bias.

However, such job evaluations aren't a new idea thought up by proponents of comparable worth. Evaluations based on such factors as skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions are the standard method of determining relative job rates utilized by most large employers. The U.S. Civil Service Commission first set up a job evaluation system in 1871. By World War II such systems were widespread in private industry.

As shown by the Westinghouse and GE examples, it's not these systems which determined that women's work should be paid less. Rather, it was a conscious manipulation of the results which kept women's wages down.

Most office jobs in basic steel mills are held by men. These male office jobs are evaluated on the same point system as other steel mill jobs and consequently pay much higher than similar women's office work in other industries.

In fact, recognizing that employers commonly compare jobs with one another, early attempts to pass equal-pay laws contained comparable-worth language. This was deleted from the 1963 federal legislation in a last-minute compromise to assure its passage. Many states, however, beginning with Alaska in 1949, have passed legislation calling for equal pay for jobs of comparable value.

Successful San Jose strike In 1981, the Supreme Court set the basis for comparable-worth suits when it ruled 54 in Gunther vs. the County of Washington that claims of work discrimination and compensation under the Equal Pay and Civil Rights Acts are not limited to equalwork situations.

Two of the best known comparableworth cases—the City of San Jose and the State of Washington-didn't arise from efforts to pay women workers fairly. Instead, they began over administrators' concerns that certain management personnel were underpaid.

In San Jose, after the city commissioned a study to determine whether management employees were being properly compensated, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) requested that a similar study be conducted for non-management personnel.

In 1980, the city implemented the management study, but refused to do so with the city worker study. In 1981, AFSCME made implementation of this study a key issue in contract negotiations. The union successfully countered the city's efforts to divide the work force by offering to pay for such comparable worth pay increases by denying general wage increases.

In July 1981, AFSCME conducted what's generally regarded as the first successful strike to force a city government to implement the results of it study.

Important victory

In Washington state, comparable-worth statistics were an outgrowth of a 1973 (continued on page 12)