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right to another group of employees. A
chemist may receive $175 to $235 a
month, a timbercruiser $250, an as
sistant engineer $285 to $360. These
positions require comparable training to
that required for a librarian, who re
ceives from $150 to $175 (not in
cluding department administrators).1
Typists and stenographers are skilled
workers in the use of typewriters and
other office machines and in shorthand
and filing. Some of them receive as little
as 56c an hour— $100 a month. Many
receive 61^2 c or $110 a month. This is
IOJ/2C lower than the minimum for un
skilled laborers.2
Chief administrators receive from
$300 to $600 a month. Their secretaries
may receive from $150 to $190 after
many years of service. Anyone who has
worked in an office knows the tremen
dous responsibility that falls upon these
women secretaries and their value to
their employers and to the department.
At the General Council Meeting of
the State Employees Association, one of
the chapters introduced a resolution re
questing equal pay for one group of
women employees. In accordance with
its function, the General Council re
ferred the resolution to the Board of
Directors for action and established by
vote the following policy: "Female em
ployees should receive the same basic
rate of salary as male employees when
their duties, qualifications and classifi
cations are similar.” Women members
will be glad to know that this policy
has been officially adopted by the Asso
ciation.
The policy of equal pay for equal
work is not a new one. The policy, we
say, is not new; the practice is, when it
is observed. The policy was first estab
lished by the War Labor Board of World
War I to meet the labor problem of
1917-1918. It was lost somewhere be
tween wars, however, for the recent
lWages as quoted in the Twelfth biennial
budget, State of Oregon, 1945-47.
2Hourly wage based on 41 hour week.
War Labor Board found it necessary to
restate it to meet labor needs in World
War II. Civil service, when justly ad
ministered, has established pay for job
classification, regardless of the sex of
the employee performing the work.
Women employees should, therefore, be
extremely interested in the working out
of our Oregon state civil service sys
tem. Various women’s organizations, the
Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Depart
ment of Labor, and some labor unions
have also campaigned for the adoption
of the equal pay principle. Then last
year the Federal Equal Pay Bill of 1945
was introduced into the Senate of Sen
ators Wayne Morse of Oregon and
Claude Pepper of Florida. Equal pay
legislation will be discussed in the sec
ond of these articles.
Senator Francis J. Myers of Pennsyl
vania in the January issue of the Wom
en’s Home Companion declares, "There
is only one safe and sane course to fol
low— to employ men and women alike
in accordance with their experience and
ability, regardless of sex. Such a policy
. . . would benefit all workers. An army
of unemployed women, desperate for
jobs, ready to grab at anything for star
vation wages, is bound to depress wages
for men. Jobs for women are inextri
cably bound with the larger problem of
jobs for all.”
But why have these men and women
presumed to think that women should
have equal pay? First, millions of single,
and often married women must work to
support themselves. Second, extensive
surveys of women workers show that a
large percentage of them are the sole
or partial support of one or more de
pendents. Third, women on the job have
proved their efficiency when properly
adjusted to their work, thus earning the
right to equal base pay. Fourth, low
wages drastically limit women’s pur
chasing power and lower the standard
of living for them and for their depen-
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