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Oregon daily
emerald
Wednesday, November 9, 1983
Eugene, Oregon
Volume 85, Number 47
Assembly
to vote on
governance
By Doug Nash
CM the Emerald
The University Assembly con
venes Wednesday in what will
prove to be one of the most
critical meetings in the history of
the 900-strong policy-making
body.
"Critical," Assembly Secretary
Keith Richard says, "to the form of
government we will have at the
University of Oregon." And
critical, Student University Affairs
Board members say, to the size
and strength of the student voice
on campus.
Whatever happens, it appears
the Assembly as it is now compos
ed is living on borrowed time. The
Assembly last year appointed a
task force to research and pro
pose changes in the body, which
was seen as too large to work effi
ciently and effectively. Indeed, the
University is almost the last col
lege in the country to still employ
the "town hall" concept.
The task force came up with
changes in faculty governance
that will give a great deal of
legislative authority to the Univer
sity Senate, which now serves on
ly an advisory' role. Only those
measures without a two-thirds
Senate majority would be referred
to the Assembly, which would
meet four or five times a year.
The University president or 10
percent of the faculty could also
initiate measures in the Assembly.
Under the task force proposal,
faculty representation on the re
formed Senate would be cut by
four, from 36 to 32. Students, who
presently make up a third of the
Senate, would be reduced to a
fifth of the new body, from 18
students to eight.
SUAB Chair Mike Prothe says
the decrease would "severely
hamper” effective student
representation. After nearly five
hours of debate on the issue last
month, the Senate approved a
SUAB-initiated amendment that
restores student representation at
the one-third level, with 14
students and 28 faculty making up
the new Senate.
Both proposals, however, will
finally be decided on the
Assembly floor, and the one-third
proportion for students is
anything but certain. Overall
faculty opinion on the issue is
"split right down the middle,"
Prothe says.
Task force Chair James Lemert, a
journalism professor, says many
faculty members are afraid the
same one-third proportion in a
more powerful Senate would do
just that: give the students more
power. Therefore, he says, the
task force was reluctant to include
the Prothe amendment in the
original motion.
SUAB's chances, he says, will
depend largely on the number of
faculty who attend the meeting.
"If the attendance is relatively
small, say less than 150, the
students' amendment will be fair
ly good," he says. "To the extent
that the number rises to 200, I
would say that their odds are fairly
poor. It may be that the (student)
number will go to two or perhaps
to zero."
The Assembly meets at 3:30 p.m.
in 150 Geology.
'Wage gap' widens, study shows
By Brent Walth
CM the Emerald
It has become common
knowledge that women in the
job market earn significantly
lower wages than men. The
figure traditionally cited is 59
female cents to every male
dollar.
However, a study by a Univer
sity sociology professor shows
the 59-cent figure may be too
generous, deceptively
overestimating what women ac
tually earn.
In the past, the inequity bet
ween men’s and women's in
comes — known as the "wage
gap" — has been measured by
comparing average annual earn
ings, according to Prof. Patricia
C w a r t n ey-G i b b s . Those
numbers were traditionally bas
ed on full-time, year-round
employment.
"But a large percentage of the
women in the work force are
part-time or seasonal workers,"
Gwartney-Gibbs says. "Our
research takes that into
account."
Working with researchers at
two other universities,
Gwartney-Gibbs tracked men's
and women's income from 1960
to 1980, and included people ag
ed 25 to 64 who worked at any
time during the prior year.
She also divided the work
force into three job sectors —
periphery, core and govern
ment. The periphery sector in
cludes occupations in which the
competition for wages takes
place in the job market — and
that competition is usually high.
The core includes unionized
jobs, or jobs where competition
for wages is within large com
panies. The government sector
includes all public employees.
The findings showed that, con
sidering all workers, women
earn an average of 46 cents to
each dollar a man brings home.
In some specific areas, that
figure dips to 33 cents.
“The justifications for these
discrepencies in earnings are
usually based on preconceived
notions of why women generally
aren't as important to the work
force," Gwartney-Gibbs says.
Women are seen as having
less education, less experience,
and less extensive work history
than men. Marriage and children
also are factors that may tend to
draw women away from their
jobs, she says.
WOMEN'S EARNINGS PER $1 OF WHITE MALE'S
Source: University Pro* Patricia GwartneyGibbs survey
acme shoestrings
eugene, Oregon
PAYROLL CHECK
No. 219
One
‘ lO THf jane doe
.43 k#of 1234 AnyM ret aa
Anywhere, U‘ * 1
ty-two d<
cents
White Black
1960
White Black
1970
White Black
1980
With this in mind, Gwartney
Gibbs continued her research
and adjusted for these factors.
She derived hypothetical earn
ings jtjig equalized between
men and women such factors as
durations with employers,
mobility within companies,
educational background, and
the number of entries and exits
from the work force.
Even with these adjustments,
the numbers showed little im
provement in wage balance.
Some groups did show gains,
and black women in the govern
ment sector were shown to
come closest to men's incomes,
earning an average of 74 cents to
every dollar earned by men.
Overall, though, the research
showed no direct relationship
between these factors and
women's true earnings,
Gwartney-Gibbs says.
Among the findings were in
dications of how income dispari
ty develops. For example earn
ings were broken down accor
ding to a person's educational
background. In 1980, in the core
sector, white males earned an
extra $1,172 for every year of col
lege — for white and black
women, the numbers were $536
and $498 respectively.
The wage gap, Gwartney
Gibbs believes, is simply summ
ed up as discrimination. "If I've
controlled for all the excuses for
why women aren't paid as much
as men, what else is there?"
Gwartney-Gibbs believes
many women are delegated to
"sex-type" job-: — working, fof
example, as nurses, librarians,
and waitresses. These occupa
tions usually fall into the
periphery sector and offer low
pay and little opportunity for
advancement.
Other forces working against
women may be more subtle.
"Women are treated as if they
are going to drop out of the
work force," Gwartney-Gibbs
says. "In turn, they aren't given
the same opportunity for job
training — an employer might be
less willing to invest in their
training."
The same attitude prevents
women from promotions within
firms, she says.
Other subjective factors, such
as marital status and physical ap
pearance, begin to play impor
tant roles in how women are af
fected in the work force.
Affirmatve action has had a
mixed affect on the wage gap,
Gwartney-Gibbs says. The
government sector has seen
wages become more equitable,
but only marginal improvement
has been made in core jobs. The
periphery remains the most
uneven sector in terms of wages.
"Blacks have tended to move
into the government sector
uy uniuir nuwiru
because of affirmative action,
but there really isn't any overall
improvement of in the area of
wages and gender," she says.
Gwartney-Gibbs suggests the
next step for her research would
be to study how people are plac
ed in certain jobs.
"Now that we've proved that
these inequities exist, we need
to show how to prevent them in
the first place." she says, noting
an examination of how firms
hire and place women might
reveal how discrimination really
works.
"What is now disturbing is
that many women think that
discrimination is a thing of the
past," Gwartney-Gibbs says.
"We've found that most young
women coming out of high
school into college believe that
discrimination doesn't exist
anymore."
Gwartney-Gibbs advises
women to become more aware
of the gaps that continue to
separate men and women's
wages, as well as the factors that
prevent those inequities from
disappearing.
"Armed with this evidence we
hope we can make a difference,"
she says. "But knowing what we
do, I'd advise women to simply
fight their own battles — to hold
their own turf when it comes to
gaining equality for
themselves."
Senate cleans up after explosion
WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI agents combed
through an estimated $1 million mound of
debris Tuesday as the Senate attempted
business as usual in the wake of a bomb blast
that ripped through a hallway and severely
damaged a meeting room near the chamber.
Officials said the device was triggered by a
wristwatch.
“The Senate will not be deterred or in
timidated," declared Majority Leader Howard
Baker, R-Tenn., as he held the Senate to a
schedule which began at 9 a.m. EST.
Baker said that had the Senate been in ses
sion at the time of the explosion, there would
have been "grave injury.. .and, perhaps, loss
of life to senators and staff."
Although there was no structural damage to
the Capitol, the blast all but wiped out a large
section of the corridor on the second —• main
— floor, adjacent to the Senate chamber. In ad
dition to shattering windows, splintering wood
frames and exposing brick wall and pipe, the
blast knocked the doors to Democratic Leader
Robert Byrd's office off their hinges and
destroyed several irreplacable paintings, in
cluding portraits of Daniel Webster and John
Calhoun.
However, the Senate chamber itself was left
intact, although a coating of dust throughout
the chamber greeted maintenance workers in
the morning.
Byrd aide Mike Willard said the damage
could reach $1 million.
The FBI said the blast was caused by a "high
explosive device with a delayed timing."
Theodore Gardner, the special agent in
charge of the Washington FBI field office, told
a news conference in front of the Capitol that
analysts had not yet determined whether the
bomb that rocked the Senate was dynamite.
However, a Senate official said the investiga
tion had determined the blast was caused by a
black-powder susbstance, not plastic
explosive.
"It was a high explosive device with delayed
timing," Gardner said. He said the group
which claimed responsibility before the blast,
the "Armed Resistance Unit," was the same
group that claimed responsibility for a blast at
Fort McNair in Washington last summer.