Then Relations Board, they have gor no. WILLIE Then there is the stark lesson of since the Act was passed it has been unscrupulously used by the employers to dodge paying women the full rate. Thousands of women have been re-graded out of the orbit of the Act Many women covered by the Act have still had to fight to pel the 90 out these fights the "90 per cent would simply have remained a bright promise.
Lahour also ignores the material basis of the oppression of women, It lo the tact that so many women are financially dependent on men for a large part of their lives.
That ricans closing all the loopholes in the present Act and instituting a trade union inquiry into the changes ine and description.
This has also got to be linked to the question of low pay two-thirds of working women are not even cov ered hy the Equal Pay Act. Unless a vigorous fight is conducted for a national minimum wage with a slid racism have token place when workers ing scale to compensate for increases in the cost of living, women will reWhere main on the botfon rung of the ec. omanic lodden Hities are other vital measures to ensure that women can take the neces the Equal Pay Act. In the four years sary steps forward to equality. Formal equality, without the means to exercise it is no more than a con and an insuit In March this year the London Trades Coune produce the Workand have no legal claims to cqual pay. ing Women's Charter. Labour's programine for women includes many of the demands of the Charter. per cent by the end of 1973. Wish- can give the Charter campaign a reat boost by opening up these questions and gaining wider support for them in the labour and trade union moveignores the responsibility of many wo- these proposals be put into practice? men for children. It does not face up Reliance on Parliament-as past practice shows in useless The Charter campain has to ho To have any taken into the broad trade onion meaning their anti-discrimination pro movement. That means petting acposals must be lied in with equal pay. tive support for the struggles of wo men both at home and at their work place. A workers government that really wanted to fight against sex made by the employers into job grad- discrimination would give all out sup por! lo the struggles of women and use its legislative powers to give them hacking that, which means thar other workers must throw their full weight behind the sight of women warkers and demand that Labour ratifies the gains made by these independent struggles.
LINDA SMITH Adequate nurseries and creche facWhat we have to ask is how can Labour has no intentirin of doing and we what appeared to hea sound answer to them: separation, and the use of Scotland's of There is no doubt that in the ab. sence of any clear alternative fod dealing with the situation from the Teadership of the Scottish labour movement "devolution did appear to large sections of workers as some magical solution to the prob lems that they lace in the region It was this lack of any effective. programure and its disastrous con sequences at the pails which provided the background to the special Scottish Labour Party conference beld in Glasgow six weeks ago. This conferenee decided to support the setting up of a directly clecred ass. embly in Scorland, with legistative Despite the smoke and noise of the battle over the question of the Assembly inside the Labour Party. and the boasts of those who back the pro-devolution policy after their victory, the truth is that the Assem bly will solve nothing for the working ciass in Scotland.
VOTE-GETTER Like true social democrats, the Scottish Labour Party determined its altitude towards the Assembly on on the basis of its use in winning, votes. Many agreed with Alex Donnet, right wing leader of the Gener al and Municipal Workers Union when he argued That be was in farpur of the Pirty supporting an As sembly for the one reason: it electe far prime mister What elected as Prime Minister. all this chatter shows is the real crisis that the Lahour Party in ScotJund (and in the rest of Britain) laces in trying to lold on to its pay NOw *Free nurseries for all *Smash the social contract * For a workers enquiry into regrading 2pm Saturday 6 October at the Department of Employment, 8 St James's Square SW1, then march to Transport House.
(Nearest tube Piccadilly Circus) about using the Scottish Assembly as a means of giving people more control ever their own lives the As sembly as planned would only be yet another harrier separating the working class from any effective con trol over The rent forces which control their lives real forces like the banks and big business. Instead of contronting this real enemy. the La bour Party see the Assertiy as a means of collaborating with them by giving more volume to the lamiliar cry of the Scottish Labour Party of attracting investment to Scol land" and of seiling the racber limit ed scene attractions of the industrialised west to yet more businessThe Assembly as proposed will provide no solution whatsoever 1o the real problems that the working class in Scotland face. That solttion will only emerge from the wor kers of Scotland using their own strength and basing themselves on their own power. An Assembly called by the Scottish TUC with delegates from factories. Tenants committees and other working class organisations would be a body that could really start to carve out a way forward.
But even a more modest venture like a conference of oil and oil related industry workers which took up the demands of total unionisation, on the siting of work in areas where the working class is already living of the opening of the books of the ad monopolies, and of u workers' pian for energy, would represent a much binger step towards solving Scotland's real problems than a the sand years of Assembly debate.
COLIN MEPHERSON for women- vote and fight!
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DEMONSTRATION: Labour's promises * Grant the SEI women's demands - equal