michelle@iddic.UUCP (05/24/84)
If this is a reposting, forgive me, (it's not exactly the same as the original) postnews at our installation does not work as advertised. Lori said : >> If all women in low paying jobs >> retrained for higher paying there would be severe shortages of nurses, >> secretaries, child care workers, elementary school teachers, homemakers >> and other valuable, necessary occupations. I think the quality of life would >> drop considerably. Perhaps her conclusion ( that the quality of life would drop considerably ) is correct. However, I think the important consideration here is that if significant numbers of women in these fields did retrain themselves for jobs in other, higher paying fields, and a labor shortage resulted in these traditionally low paying, female dominated fields, the wages in these fields would rise simply due to supply and demand. And more importantly, the ONLY way wages in these fields are going to rise is if we (women) create labor shortages in these fields by moving into other fields. Yes, the overall quality of life in America may drop, but the standard of living for all those people working in the fields mentioned above will rise quite a bit if they are finally paid what their work is truly worth. Personally, I'm willing to sacrifice a portion of my standard of living to insure that nurses, teachers, child care workers, secretaries, and homemakers are paid a fair wage and receive rewards that are commensurate with the importance of these jobs. No one is going to cause this change but us, because no one is going to give pay raises to workers in jobs for which there is an continuing supply of people willing to work for the current low wage. Until we as a mass say NO to low wages and poor job related rewards and continue to train ourselves to be splendid underpaid skilled workers, teachers will always be paid less than garbage collectors, etc.... We are the only ones who can cause this change, no one is going to do it for us. Michelle Franz tektronix!iddic!michelle
neal@denelcor.UUCP (Neal Weidenhofer) (06/04/84)
************************************************************************** >No one is going to cause this change but us, because no one is going to give >pay raises to workers in jobs for which there is an continuing supply of people >willing to work for the current low wage. Until we as a mass say NO to low >wages and poor job related rewards and continue to train ourselves to be >splendid underpaid skilled workers, teachers will always be paid less than >garbage collectors, etc.... >Michelle Franz RIGHT ON, HEAR HEAR, and AMEN !!! Regards, Neal Weidenhofer "Nothin' ain't worth nothin' Denelcor, Inc. but it's free" <hao|csu-cs|brl-bmd>!denelcor!neal