St OE, gears 2 LES, meprrr t aah ah Steadily worsening layoff situa- tion which swells the ranks of the Jobless, particularly among the young. This week we take the lib- erty of printing excerpts from an article in ‘‘ The Newsletter’’ pub- lished by ‘The Ottawa Coalition for Full Employment’’, and deal-- Ing with ‘‘The-Government’s At- tack on Women’’. “... The use of the official Statistics Canada figures presents 4 problem when -discussing the Number of unemployed since they Vastly underestimate the real levels of unemployment, : espe- Cially for women. These official es only include those who are Collecting Unemployment Insur- ance and have actively looked for Work in the past four weeks. They do not include women who. are Rot collecting Unemployment In- surance since they have never’ €n able to find ajob or were not Owed to work long enough to qualify for Unemployment Insur- ance, women who are working Part-time who would prefer full- time jobs, women who are volun- "ers who would prefer paid €mployment, women who have Tetumed to school since they Cannot find jobs, women who are Tegistered in Manpower re- taining courses, or women who ‘ave become discouraged and have finally given up looking for Paid employmerit and have re- turned to their other full-time job, 4§ mother and housewife. These Women, along with many men, Onstitute what is referred to as the ‘hidden unemployed’’; all those who are not included in the Official unemployment figures but Who are nonetheless actually un- €mployed. ' ‘Secondary Income Earners’ “Another problem one encoun- Ts when discussing unemploy- Ment among women is the at- titude that it is not-a serious prob- “m because women are only _ Secondary income earners’’. “... Over 40% of working Women are single, widowed or di- Yorced and therefore not ‘‘secon- “ary income earners” but the only come earner supporting them- Selves and often their families as Well. Also statistics from’ 1974 Show that 50% of working wives Were married to men who earned less than $8,000 a year. This addi- tional income ‘is often the differ- ®nee between poverty and mini- Mal comfort’’. (People and Jobs, Economic Council of Canada.) Today with inflation continually ‘90 the rise most families require © incomes to meet their basic Necessities. (A survey. on un- *mployment in Brampton, Ont. has recently confirmed this.) “Women want to work and Women need to work. What must also be realized. .. is that women Ve a right to work at all times. . . is is not just a short-term battle Which we want to win because ' 'flation demands two incomes in family. : “This leads us back to one of the main problems working Women have always had to con- nt — that a woman’s primary is in the home and that a Wothan’s role in the labor force is - S€condary. In practice what this Last week we dealt with the Unemplo ladies Ui | cn is coking meansisthatwomenformareserve labor force, called upon to work outside the home when needed but forced back into the home when demand for their labor de- creases. Wartime is often cited as the clearest example of the prac- tice since jobs were readily made available to women when men were away at war. Forms of day- care were provided and they were encouraged to take vacant jobs. But as soon as the-men returned from war, daycare became’ scarce, jobs were returned to the men, and women were forced back into the home. Presently. as job opportunities are becoming more limited for women as a re- “sult of drastic cutbacks in social service spending. . ..in the health sector, daycare sector, education sector as well as cutbacks in other areas... affecting women. _ UIC Amendments ‘