A recent meeting of Organized Working Women

(OWW), heard Monica Townsend quoted as warning
that the drift to the right in Canada was further aggravat-
Ing the ‘gender gap”’.

To which we can only respond: Right on, sister.

What she was referring to as the gender gap was the
Towing disparity between men’s and women’s wages
for the same work, as well of course as the discrimination
against women which exists in job opportunities and
Promotion.

The value of Townsend’s description of the malady,
and its growing proportions, is that it properly links the
Struggle for women’s equality with the fightback of the
entire labor movement and against the danger of an even
More dangerous shift to the right.

. Workers are becoming more and more aware of the
inseparable connection between the relentless push to
the right by big-business in the political arena, and the
equally relentless attack on their wages, working and
living conditions. It has to do with what they call the
ttom line, a sophisticated term for profits.
Widening the Gap

The less it costs for wages, money wages (pay cheque)
and social wages (health, education and social welfare,
etc.) the more there is left for the corporations to pocket
(in the short-run). With women representing an ever
larger percentage of the work force it requires little
accounting skill to realize the extra profits companies
accumulate by paying lower wages to women for doing
the same work as their male counterparts.

The point being made by the OWW is just as the drive
to the right is designed to push wages, working and social
Conditions down still further, so is it designed to still
further widen the gap between men’s and women’s
Wages.

It doesn’t require this column to drive home the point.
This was done very well by the recent OWW conference.

t the labor movement must conclude however is
that the struggle to narrow and eliminate the ‘‘gender
8ap' is as much a part of the daily battle of workers as a
whole to protect their wages and working conditions as is
the fight against concessions and for wage increases.

he matter does not end there.

Double Exploitation

The entry of women into the work force, has of course
led to their escape from the sheer drudgery of housework

Labor in action

q William Stewart

as a profession, (albeit often to face it alone after eight
hours for the boss) but it has also led to other pheno-
mena. A single wage for a married male worker used to
carry the whole burden of a household’s economic
needs.

This is now more often than not, shared by two wage
earners, male and female, the result being that costs have
expanded to equal the dual wage, with the women usu-
ally being paid at a lower rate for similar work than the
male. Thus corporations have upped their profits in two

ways. They have decreased their costs of feeding, cloth- .

ing, educating and socially, maintaining workers by
extracting labor from two workers to carry what was
previously carried by one. They have further kept the
cost of the labor of women workers below that of men.

Adding all this up we see that women are not simply
exploited as women they are exploited and doubly
exploited as workers. But this being the case, it is impos-
sible to exploit them without at the same time exploiting
all workers. This is indeed what is happening.

Class, Democratic Question

The struggle to overcome the inequality of women is
therefore at its roots a class question, related to the
exploitation of the working class as a whole.

But it is also a democratic question. How can male
workers sit back and see their sisters even more mer-
cilessly exploited than themselves. First of all it is
unacceptable on a worker to worker relationship.

No self-respecting worker can stand by and see a
fellow worker treated in a manner inferior to that in
which all workers are addressed, (which is not too good,
in any case, in the workplace today). But beyond that it is
an insult to women as a whole, an affront to their dignity
that they should be treated as inferiors in any area of
society, not least of all the work place.

Eliminating the ‘gender gap’

For both reasons that have to do with the economic
interests of all workers, and for reasons which have to do
with essential democratic practice and for reasons which
have to do with the very dignity and equality of more
than half the human race — women — it is a primary duty
of the entire labor movement to make the struggle for full
equality for women a priority item, on its agenda.

Labor would do well to remind itself on the occasion of
International Women’s Day. 1984, that to block the shift
to the right, to move over onto the offensive against
monopoly in the struggle for its economic and social
interests, the full strength and talents of Canadian work-
ing women are absolutely essential.

These great talents and energy will only fully flower
and be brought to bear as labor makes the cause of full
equality for its sisters its own.

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Women are fighting more than their own battles — in
the labor movement, in the far-reaching peace
campaigns, on a multiplicity of social issues.

Every such fight demands unity; communication with
allies and potential allies; the encouragement of shared
victories and the chance to offer your experiences as
ammunition for others. _

It’s that kind of clearing house for inspiration and
solidarity you find every week in the Pacific Tribune —
how to do battle, how to win — from the labor
movement, the women’s movement, from peace and
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The Tribune is essential in the heat of battle because it
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PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 7, 1984 e 7