Document 79: "Employment," in Susanna Downie, Decade of Achievement: 1977-1987: A Report on a Survey Based on the National Plan of Action for Women (Washington, D.C.: National Women's Conference Committee, 1988), pp. 35-38.
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EMPLOYMENT
NATIONAL PLAN GOALS
• a national policy of full employment • enforcement of all laws, executive order and regulations prohibiting employment discrimination • improve funding for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission • federal legislation to provide equal pay for work of equal value • equitable representation of women at all management levels of Federal agencies • all Federal women employees in Grades 11 thru 15 should be made eligible for managerial positions • apprenticeship programs, especially those for "non-traditional" jobs should open up to women of all racial and ethnic origins • English-language programs specially designed for working women whose primary language is not English • amend Veteran's Preference Act of 1944 so that veteran's preference is used on a one-time-only basis • prohibit discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions • enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Social Security Act as they apply to household workers • flex-time and pro-rated benefits for part-time workers • Statistics collected by the Federal government should enable assessment of impact of Federal programs on women and participation of women in the administration of such programs.
SOME BASIC FACTS:
• 77% of women workers are still in female-intensive occupations, which are at the lowest end of the pay scaled (1985).
• Since 1964 there have been no new federal laws mandating solutions to sex - or race - based wage discrimination, and only lax or nill enforcement of the 1964 Equal Pay Act.
• The wage gap is alive and well, recent media reports to the contrary notwithstanding. The ratio of women's wages compared to men's is now about 64%, up only 4% since 1980, and just about equal to what it was in 1955. The 70% figure reported (1987) by the Census Bureau was re-examined by the National Committee on Pay Equity and found to be partly due to a decline in men's wages, and partly a function of younger women's entry into non-female-dominant fields. For older women in the pink collar ghettos, the ratio is still 60%. For women aged 21-29 with four years of college it's 86%.
• Government agencies charged with oversight and enforcement of civil rights laws and affirmative action programs have deteriorated: specifically, under the Reagan administration, the Department of Justice, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have all taken positions opposing affirmative action, pay equity, and other concrete remedies to sex and race discrimination in employment.
• But according to a National Committee on Pay Equity report (1988), over 1500 local and state governments have taken steps to identify or eliminate race or sex bias in the wages of their own employees. This includes 14 states that have begun to implement comparable worth pay equity, and 32 states are conducting research on their pay systems prior to implementation. Cities that have equalized their pay systems included Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Green Bay, Ann Arbor, and Butlington VT.
WOMEN'S ORGANIZING:
There has been so much organizing in so many different sectors around employment issues that a comprehensive account of progress or lack of it on the issues identified in the National Plan would take a book all in itself. But the recent merger of Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW) with the National Commission on Working Women (NCWW) is as good a place as any to begin.
WOW is one of the pioneer organizations in women's employment. WOW got started in 1964, in Washington DC, after passage of the Equal Pay Act, as a volunteer, self-help women's employment group with no budget and no staff. They began offering job counselling, skills evaluation, and job hunting workshops for women, and opened a talent bank for employers. By 1974, they were serving over 1400 women a month and women were entering the workforce in record numbers. By 1972, other women in every region of the country were starting job evaluation and counselling programs for women.
WOW thus became a model for women's employment programs all over the United States. In 1977, WOW pulled together a network of these groups, and today the Women's Work Force Network consists of over 200 programs in 38 states, serving a total of 300,000 women each year. The WWN is allied with, and there is some overlap with, the Displaced Homemakers Network (see Homemakers). WOW continues to provide training for non-traditional employment to 250 Washington area women annual.
The National Commission on Working Women was created in 1977, by Willard Wirtz (Sec. of Labor under Kennedy) and Elizabeth Koontz (Dept. of Labor), to focus on the needs and concerns of "the 80%" — the women in the workforce who are concentrated in low-paying, low-status jobs (service, retail sales, clerical, and industrial), and who are mostly not yet unionized. NCWW began collecting data, and did a major national survey, published in June 1979, assessing the working conditions of the 80% (wages and benefits, child care, education and training for promotion). In 1987, NCWW and WOW merged, and together are one of the best sources for Fact Sheets and information on women's employment issues, as well as being a dynamic force for change.
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The Coalition of Labor Union Women was founded in 1974, to "organize the unorganized", increase women's participation in their unions, and generally advocate for affirmative action and women's political and legislative activity. CLUW started with about 3000 women at their founding conference in Chicago, and today their membership is over 18,000, representing 65 different unions. CLUW was one of the leadership organizations in the founding of the National Committee on Pay Equity (1976), and ERA-America (1976), and was the first national organization to move its convention site out of an unratified state. They also had something to do with the AFL-CIO's endorsement of the ERA (1975).
CLUW has a long list of publications on union women's issues, including representation in union leadership, contract language, hospital workers, occupational health issues, and child care, family & work issues. CLUW lobbyists are active on all these issues, plus minimum wage and labor law reform. Unions which have a high percentage of women members and/or are particularly good on an women's issues are: AFSCME, SEIU, Communication Workers of America, both teacher's unions (AFT and NEA), ILGWU, United Mine Workers, United Auto Workers, Electrical Workers (IUE), Food and Commercial Workers, and the Newspaper Guild.
9 to 5, The National Association of Working Women, started organizing in 1973, in Boston MA. The idea of an organization for office workers spread to other cities around the country and the group became national in 1978. Membership has grown from 50 in 1973, to 14,000 today.
9 to 5 itself is not a union. In 1981, they helped establish District 925, along with Service Employees International, of the AFL/CIO, as a formal union for office workers. District 925 and 9 to 5 still work together, and the President of District 925 is also Executive Director of 9 to 5, but the organizations have separate budgets and staffs. Clerical workers number about 15 million (1986), of which 15.3% are covered by union contracts. Male clerical workers (about 18% of all clericals), make 30% more than females, even when their job category is exactly the same, 23% of male and 15% of female clericals are unionized. Clerical work is still the largest single category of women workers.
9 to 5's estimates that it has counseled over 1 million individuals on legal rights and job problems, and have been insturmental in winning a total of $25 million in back pay and pay equity raises for working women (and men). 9 to 5 was one of the first organizations to attend to Video Display Terminal (VDT) hazards. On the ergonomic issues, at least at the level of attitude, set-up of the work place is now seen, even by managers, as a serious issue. But many large employers have not made any beneficial changes in the working conditions of their employees. Time for breaks is still scarce but more needed than ever with so much concentrated, and increasingly computer monitored, work at VDTs.
Increase in productivity has not been compensated with increase in pay or better conditions. Instead, many employers have increased use of part-time and temporary workers to avoid payment of benefits, to downgrade jobs, and cut base pay. Between 1970 and 1987, the Labor force increased by 39%, Part-Time workers increased by 63% (from 12 million to 19 million) but full-time workers increased only 35.6% (Bureau of Labor statistics). Increasing automation, and coming shifts in the clerical field, will make VDT health issues even more important (for more on VDT and health, see Occupational Health, below).
Unionization is of clear benefit to workers who have no structural power, and no opportunity for advancement via higher education or training. Salaries of unionized workers are on average 25% higher than wages of comparable non-unionized workers. Unionized clerical workers earn an average 39% more than non-unionized peers. Although the National Labor Relations Act long ago (1935) established the rights of workers to unionize, a Congressional Labor-Management Relations Report (1984) found that workers who openly favor or promote unionization are subject to intimidation, reprisals, and job loss, with little protection; and union-busting and union-bashing have become fair sport for management in the "pro-business" environment created by the Reagan Presidency. The anti-union atmosphere has worsened since 1980 and has made unionization of clerical workers and other female-dominated sectors of the workforce even harder than it was before.
Federally Employed Women (FEW) got its start in the summer of 1968 at a course, for middle and upper level women executives in the government, given by Helen Dudley. The course was part of a response by women in the federal government to Civil Rights legislation in 1967 granting sex equity the same status as other forms of discrimination in the federal services. About 16 women from that group decided there was a need for an organization to work to end sex discrimination in federal employment, to improve the merit system, and enhance women's opportunities for advancement in government. At its peak. FEW had about 8000 members and several hundred chapters, and though the atmosphere in recent years has not been especially favorable to women's organizing. FEW still has over 200 chapters in 46 states and 5 foreign countries.
FEW works primarily in the areas of training (holding an annual training conference open to all federally empoyed women), and legislation (on such issues as pay equity, civil rights, child care, parental leave, women in the military, and ERA). In 1987, FEW did a study of the employment of women in the Federal government and other issues defined by the Plan. Some highlights follow (all figures given here apply to the federal labor force only):
• Women went from 34% of the full time workers in 1977, to 40% in 1986.
• 41% of women workers are in clerical work.
• Women are now 86% (up from 84% in 1977) of clerical employees, but only 27% (up from 20% in 1977) of Professional employees. The percentage of attorneys who are women has doubled (from 13.8% in 1977 to 27% in 1986).
• The other major areas of increase (between 1977
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• Since 1981, many departments have merged EEO and Personnel functions, with the result of downgrading the EEO position (often held by a woman) and adding personnel work to her job. Thus the increase in women as Personnel Managers has come at the expense of EEO.
• Average salary for women (1986) was $21,190 per year, compared to men's $30.590 per year. In the Professional category, white women make 62% of what men make, and minority women make 58%.
• The relative positions (1986), by average grade level, of employees of different races and sexes exactly mirrors that in the general labor force: White males on top (av. GS 10.0), followed by Hispanic males (GS 8.3), Black males (GS 7.6), White females (GS 6.0), Black females (GS 5.9), and Hispanic females (GS 5.6). These averages have not changed significantly since 1980. (Note: Grade level determines salary, higher grade level equals higher salary and status.)
• Women comprise only 7% of Senior Executive and Grade 16-18 positions (up from 3.4% in 1977). the rate of women appointed to top level positions has declined, with women holding less than 1% of level 13-14 wage grade jobs: from January '81 to April '83, only 24 out of 287 Presidential appointees were women.
• The federal government has yet to enact a bill introduced by Mary Rose Oakar (D-OH) in 1986 to undertake a pay equity study of federal employees. Support for the measure is high in both houses, however, and proponents of the bill expect it to pass, perhaps in 1988.
OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH: Secretarial work is now recognized by occupational health specialists to be one of the most stressful job categories, due to a combination of high productivity demand and low control over how the job is done. Machine-paced workers are 70% 200% more likely to develop heart disease or other stress-related disorders than are low-level managerial workers. Other female intensive job categories that involve high stress working conditions are: waitress, salesclerk, telephone operator, cashier, and garment stitcher.
Since 1977, a new threat of particular concern to women has emerged: VDT (Video Display Terminal) hazards. There are already over 28 million VDTs in use in the U.S., and that figure is expected to reach 40 million in a few years. VDT hazards include eye problems, muscle strain and pain leading to inflammatory and degenerative disorders, and stress arising from increased productivity demands and computer monitoring. VDT users in general report a higher incidence of headaches, insomnia, fatigue and tension than non-users.
Pregnancy problems, including miscarriage and stillbirth, have been reported among clusters of VDT users in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Though the connection between VDT users and pregnancy problems has been dismissed by the WHO and the AMA, researchers in both Sweden and Spain have found abnormalities in both chick embryos and pregnant mice exposed to VDT-type radiation. In May 1987, The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Heath (NIOSH) began a study of reproductive risks among VDT users.
The Women's Occupational Health Resource Center was founded in 1978, by Dr. Jeanne Stellman, its current Director, to document and increase awareness of the health issues and needs of women workers. WOHRC has a newsletter that carriers current information, and an extensive list of fact sheets and publications on special risks to women in electrical work, health care, textile and clothing work, hairdressers, agricultural workers, and other occupations involving exposure to hazardous chemicals or radiation; publications also include information on government and industrial regulations and practices, how to spot health hazards, and practical suggestions for dealing with them. Members of WOHRC's network of over 200 occupational health specialists nationwide are available for lectures or programs on women's occupational health hazards.
PREGNANCY DISABILITY: In October 1978, Congress amended Title VII (PL 95-555) to include discrimination based on pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions under the definition of what constitutes unlawful sex discrimination in employment. The law does not require employers to provide special benefits for pregnancy, it simply specifies that pregnancy is to be treated like any other temporary disability. The Pregnancy Disability Act, as PL 95-555 is called, was designed to undo the precedent set by the Supreme Court in Gilbert v. General Electric (1976), in which the court held that the employer's failure to include pregnancy in its sick leave policy did not constitute sex discrimination because if men got pregnant they would be excluded too!
Nevertheless, in 1986 the Supreme Court reaffirmed PL 95-555 and upheld a California law that requires employers to provide a 4-month period of unpaid leave for physical disability due to pregnancy (Cal Fed v. Guerra). The Parental and Medical Leave Act, now pending in Congress (early 1988), would go beyond PL 95-555 and require all employers to provide up to 10 weeks of unpaid leave for pregnancy.
The United States is the only industrialized nation without a national job-protecting maternity leave policy. With 44% of the labor force being women, and that percentage expected to increase, and 80% of women expected to become pregnant at least once during their prime child-bearing years, which are also their prime working years, it is time for the U.S. to grow out of its barbaric attitude toward maternity. The Parental and Medical Leave Act would bring the US up to standards set by our more civilized allies in the family of nations.
THE BOARDROOM AND THE EXECUTIVE SUITE:
With the "glass ceiling" firmly in place, women still face
subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) barriers as they move up, but there has
been some progress toward sex integration at the upper levels of employment.
Catalyst, Inc. reports (December, 1987) that 395 women held 576
directorships in 1986, at 44% of the top 1000 corporations. In 1977, there were
only 204 women directors, at about 18% of the
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Women's executives are now sufficiently numerous,
however, to make
breakthroughs into top management just a matter of
time. Meanwhile, they are organizing to share information and strategies
for getting ahead. There are several national networks-the most striking of
these organizations, one which spans the decade and is the least elitist, is
The National Association for Female Executives, Inc., NAFE was founded
in 1972, by Wendy Rue, who believed that financial independence was the only
way women would ever achieve "true equality", the 1000+ members enrolled by
1977 were listed on index cards and kept in a shoebox. But the publications and
membership benefits of NAFE emphasized women's power to accomplish their career
goals, helped them define those goals, and generally took a demystifying
approach to money and power. In 1978, NAFE began large national mailings to
build membership, which grew to 40,000 by the end of 1979. Rejecting the idea
of a "cookie-cutter" style of organization, with identically-structured
chapters and bylaws dominated by a national HQ, NAFE opened up the organizing
process to whoever was willing to pull together a network in her area, got 900
volunteers in 1979, and today NAFE's national membership is organized in a
free-wheeling assortment of local affiliates organized along whatever lines the
local women have chosen, including groups of artists, and single mothers. NAFE
has had an explosive growth in membership in the last few years, and now has
over 200,000 women executives, including a few men, who have joined just to
"keep up with the competition". BoL statistics show that only 1.4% of full time
women workers earn over $50,000. NAFE reckons that 20,000 of those women are
NAFE members (10% of their membership).
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR GETS NOT A WOMAN HEAD, BUT A LIVELY
PROPONENT OF A NATIONAL CHILD CARE POLICY/PROGRAM
Another sign that even a distinctly non-feminist administration women can be perceived as an important political constituency is the appointment of Ann Dore McLaughlin, as Secretary of Labor, in December, 1987. According to Ms. (March 88), there was "vigorous behind-the-scenes lobbying to have at least one women in the cabinet [by] election year 1988". Ms. McLaughlin is considered a "right-of-center" Republican, but in her third day in office she created a high-level task force to report to her on child care, and she is positioning herself to create viable compromise on the issue, which is shaping up as a major battle in the 100th Congress. Bills range from a proposal by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) for an $875 million/3-year child care program to the much more comprehensive (and expensive -2.5 billion) ABC legislation backed by at least 171 congresspersons, including Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) (see Child Care, for details on ABC). Ms. McLaughlin is also reported to have sent "over my dead body signals" in response to rumors that Attorney General Meese might be preparing for another assault on affirmative action.
WORKPLACE DEMOCRACY: The Association for the Democratic Workplace started out in 1980 as Worker's Trust. In 1987, when they changed their name they had 600 organizational members (democratically run workplaces, many of them co-ops) and 4000 individual members, 80% of whom are women. Their pension plan, and term life insurance, which are offered to both types of members, have unisex rates, and the health plan covers maternity care and alternative health modalities. ADW also publishes materials for organizing democratically runs businesses, whether worker-owned or not, and whether non-profit or not.
RE: Social Security for Household Workers—see Homemakers
RE: Statistics - see Statistics.
—with help from a list of people so long and so varied that there is not enough
space to list them here, but there's at least one of them in every office listed below.
RESOURCES:
National Committee on Pay Equity, 1201 16th St. NW Rm 422, Washington DC 20036, (202) 822-7304.
Wider Opportunities for Women/National Commission on Working Women (WOW/NCWW) 1325 G St. NW Lower Level, Washington DC 20005, (202) 737-5764. Full range of fact sheets on the issues, and other literature; also a tape library of the winners of the annual (since 1979) Women at Work Broadcast Award Program - subjects include child care, two-career families, non-traditional employment, work-place organizing, Tapes are available for rent.
Federally Employed Women, 1400 Eye St. NW, Suite 400, Washington DC 20005. (202) 88-898-0994. Report: The Advancement of Women in the Federal Government—A Progress Report by Chris deVries. 24 pages.
Women's Legal Defense Fund, 2000 P St. NW, Suite 400, Washington DC 20036. (202) 887-0364. Packet on parental leave, maternity leave, data on pregnancy discrimination.
9 to 5, The National Association of Working Women, 614 Superior Ave. NW, Cleveland OH 44113. (216) 566-9308. Fact sheets, an "Office Supplies" publications list, including 9 to 5, The working Woman's Guide to Office Survival, by Ellen Cassedy and Karen Nussbaum, founders of 9 to 5 (173 pp.).
Women's Occupational Health Resource Center, 117 St. John's Place, Brooklyn NY 11217. (718) 230-8822. Dr. Jeanne Stellman, Director.
National Association for Female Executives, Inc., 1041 3rd Ave., New York, NY 10021. (212) 371-0740.
Coalition of Labor Union Women, 15 Union Sq., New York NY 10003. (212) 242-0700.
Association for the Democratic Workplace, 1400 High St. Suite A. Eugene OR 97401. (503 683-8184. Contact: Ms. Garry Oldham.
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