Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1948-09-24
Women's News
And Views
BY Odessa Overy
Secretary Women'S Bureau
Region 2-B

Equal pay is just plain JUS
tice, pay should be placed on
the nature of the job not on
the sex of the worker. In the
Detroit area it seems that there
are several shops that have
equal pay for equal work.
Helen Moore from Local 602
and an employee at the Fisher
Body plant in Lansing, Michi-
gan, has been fighting this
problem since 1887. When the
women complained about pay
differentials and sought under
Michigan law to receive the
same rate of pay as the men,
management fired all the
women in the shop.
With the aid and assistance
of the UAW, charges were
filed against the company. 1t
took these women eight years
to collect the pay that was due
them :. most of these women
had small children and they
needed the money then for
clothing, food and the necessi-
ties of life.
The commodities that we
women buy do not have any
special prices on them for
women. There are no special
price tags for women. When /
purchase coat for myself or
for my children, or a railroad
ticket, l must pay the same
price that any man pays, so
why shouldn't l receive the
same rate of pay.
Equal pay also affords men
greater wage and job security,
because this discourages en-
ployers from hiring women for
less money, or as often times
happens, replacing them with
women at lower rates. They
were doing this during the war
but now they are doing things
on a different fashion. They
are changing the method slight
ly so that most people cannot
even detect the change, or they
take two operations and COM
bine then into one and then
they are classed as male jobs,
which is eliminating the neces-
sity of the women in the shop.
In time we will find that this
will make drastic change in
the women's status.
This in time will make the
women open up their eyes and
take notice as to the chance
that they have with all these
modern methods the employ
ers are using to get back what
they are raying out on these
wage increases. The jobs that
they are just changing slightly
are being refined so very
close that they will not be able
to make more than 125 b.
hours, which in our shop is
very low rate of pay. If this
keeps going at the rate of
speed that it is, in transform
ing these jobs there will be a
great many of us that will be
looking for work before an
other year rolls around for it
is common talk among super
visorS and foremen that per-
son will have to have at least
10 years seniority in order to
be employed at our particular
shop, which is the Auto-Lite.
They certainly are doing lot
of changing over ,and cutting
rates to the minimum. The
only way that the women can
put a stop to this is by pushing
the equal pay bill, H. r. 4273
and H. r. 4408.
William Oliver, Co-Director
of the Fair Practice and Anti
D scr mination Department
said: Our experiences show
that wage injustices to women
result in a tremendous loss to
the public in purchasing power
and production. During the
war the women worked on
drill presses, machine lathes,
boring machines, and even
grinders.
women workers proved
their ability in the auto indus
try, to produce the quantity
and quality of the type of
work required by manage
And / must add that
with their nimble fingers that
they produced even better
than the men did on some of
the jobs because they have the
knack to get their fingers into
spots that the men with their
clumsy fingers cannot. Thus
l hope that you women that
read this column will point it
out to some of your friends in
your shops so that you can
form some kind of league to
protect the women's rights.