6 - Sunday, December 28, 1986 - North Shore News News Viewpoint Day care dilemma ORTH VANCOUVER District’s refusal to allow a small neighborhood day care service to expand to meet the needs of area residents betrays uncharacteristically myopic vision. Patricia Vickery appeared before council Dec. 15 to apply for permission to increase maximum capacity of her Draycott Road day care from eight to 15 children. But neighbors, who according to Vickery’s November neighborhood survey had no objection to the proposed expansion a month apo, appeared in council armed with a lawyer and rattling sheaves of paper ammunition against it. Noise from traffic and children, they argued, would become unbearable the moment nine or more children were allowed to congregate under one roof. In addition, they moaned, property vaiues would plummet with the onslaught of howling children and door-slamming working parenis. But Vickery’s request for expansion underlines the demand for day care in the district in general and Lynn Valley in particular and the dearth of good local facili- ties offering that service. In an era of two-income working parents, the need for good local day care has become evermore vital. And the best place to cultivate day care that will benefit both children and parents and, ultimately, the community is in local neighborhoods, not in some dis- tant institution. WAGE DISCRIMINATION ain't no duck! THERE’S AN old saying that if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, then it’s a duck. Right? Wrong. Pay equity, just introduced in a bill in Ontario, at a quick glance looks fair, sounds necessary and appears democratic. : But there's a hitch. For this new legislation, enshrin- ing in law the unworkable concept of equal pay for work of equal value, will loose a plague of trou- bles upon the economy in general, and upon women, the very people it aims to help, in particular. GRUB UP VOTES Nor can the rest of Canada af- ford to gloat, for pay equity is a popular, if misguided, concept, one guaranteed to grub up plenty of votes for politicians whose main goal in life is to get re-elected. What’s wrong with making a law prohibiting wage discrimina- tion? Nothing. It already exists in the form of equal pay for equal work and human rights legislation. But equal pay for work of cqual value, by attacking only the symp- toms and not the real disease, just won't fly. At its foundation is the idea that unlike jobs can be compared with unwaving accuracy. No such foolproof system has yet been devised. More than that, the On- tario legislation says job evaluation should consider four factors: skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions. BROADER VIEW Nothing in there about the mar- ket which, in the real world, is what makes or breaks a business and, taking a broader view, the economy. It’s real trouble for small businesses, most of which don’t have formal job descriptions because the jobs keep changing. For them, pay equity becomes a bureaucratic nightmare, diverting resources away from the produc- TONY CARLSO Contributing Writer tive work of their business. Pay police will be able to enter a business, demand that the employer produce any documents they deem necessary, arbitrarily decide who's eligible for a raise and issue an order under the act. No -hearing is necessary, although the commission will hear appeals. Non-compliance carries fines of up to $2,000 for an individual and $25,000 for the firm. These pay police will show up if even one disgruntled employee complains. The act promises the individual anonymity, but what grapevine has ever been stopped by a piece of paper. PAY INCREASES And consider that any pay in- creases will go only to women — undervalued men need not apply which seems curiously discriminatory in itself. Other employees of both sexes will bear part of the cost, since their own raises will be limited as employers work to remain com- petitive by keeping costs, including payroll, reasonable. The potential for infighting and jealousies is scary. Nor will it be cheap for employers to defend against indi- . vidual complaints, which may have many motives. Thus, employers will look for ways around the pay police snare, by sub-contracting work or by not hiring women. All of this adds up to fewer jobs for women and a loss of produc- tivity and the competitive edge for the economy as a whole. No ma’am, this sure ain’t no duck. CFIB Feature Service THE VOICE OF MONTH AND WEST VancoUVEn ET ie ene ; | Display Advertising 4 Classitind Advertising 986-6222 Newsroam Distribution Subscriptions North Shove News, tiumeterd ot 1464 an an indegendant gut ee oe SUNDAY + WEDNESDAY + FRIDAY 1139 Lonsdale Ave. North Vancouver, 8.C. V7M 2H4 98,287 (average, Wedaasday Friday & Sunday) SDA DIVIGiOts Publis Editor: 980-0514 985-2131 986-1337 986-1337 fnew Uy 4 Alamen Managing Editor Advertising Director Petir Speck iwoel Wright Barrett Fisher Linda Stewart ene pabe ted Gublbed nder Scregule ttl Paragragn IH of ther Pets Lid and devtibuted to every door an Vincouse! $25 per gat Mailing tates ity Tot UnnOhCited Maleredd inclucog Manuscopts, a her: -In-Chlef Entire contents © 1986 Worth Shore Free Press Lid. All tights teserved. NEWS photo Tom Burley DENNY’S representative Ken Joyal, teft, brightened the faces of the kids at the LGH children’s ward Tues- day with a donation of gifts and money from the restaurant.Nurse Gail Brown, centre, and 10-year-old Ryan Weber cuddle up to some of the ward's new friends. : ‘No-sno' THINGS ARE not going as well as they might in the upper reaches of restaurant-land. Oh, the, food is good, even ex- cellent. The decor is exquisite, as befits such palaces of eating. And the service is impeccable, as always. But such dining spots as Valentinos and Primi in Los Angeles, Gordon and Cafe Pro- vencal in Chicago, Dominique’s in Washington D.C., Quilted Giraffe in New York City — and dozens of top watering holes right here in Canada — are now faced with the problem of no shows. The probiem is so serious - in some cases up to SO per cent of customers calling in for reserva- tions fail to honor them — that management is considering abol- ishing this system altogether. For the non-appearance of even a few diners can spell the difference be- tween profit and Joss for the entire evening. But this would be a great inconvenience for the high rollers who frequent such establishments, and if there is one thing that free enterprise teaches an entrepreneur, it is that ‘‘the customer is always Tight.’’ STUFF IT Before we go any further, we must grant that this may not seem like much of a difficulty to Joe Lunchbucket, who rarely if ever breaks bread with the Rolls Royce, NOEL WRIGHT Py WALTER BLOCK The Fraser Institute yacht, and. high fashion set. ‘‘Let them all eat cake, and stuff it’’ might be the typical response of the man in the street to the whole question. But this is a serious pro- blem nonetheless, one which, paradoxically, affects almost everyone. JOB RISK If it cannot be solved, then an important segment of a large in dustry will be put at risk. Top scale restaurants employ thousands of chefs, cooks, waiters, busboys, cleaners asnd managers, to say nothing of secretaries, lawyers, ac- countants, and on and on in bewildering complexity. These firms, moreover, purchase pots, pans, ovens, tables, cutlery, crockery, tablecloths, rapkins, etc. They throw business in the direc- tion of laundries, deliveries, babysitters and taxi cab drivers. If unemployment strikes at the peo- ple who work in these restaurants, or in any of the numerous in- dustries which supply them, and as a result they decrease their pur- chases from still other vendors, the ensuing joblessness can be quite ON VACATION s’ threat substantial. What, then, can be done to solve the onerous problem of no shows? One tack that has been tried is to refuse to accept reservations from repeat offenders. ‘‘Every dog is allowed one bite’’ would appear to be the motto here, but the obstacle is that people can and do give false names. Another trick of the trade is to require that the reservation be reconfirmed. If the would-be guest does not call by, say, | p.m., and cannot be reached by phone, then his reservation is summarily cancelled. The problem here is that anyone who has the bad manners to make conflicting reservations at several restaurants probably has the temerity to reconfirm at each. Perhaps the most inventive pro- cedure is to take credit card numbers from people along with their reservations — and to charge them a fee of $10 per person if they do not show up, and fail to cancel at least several hours before their appointment. One restau- ranteur implemented just this pro- gram, but then lost a claims fight with American Express when he tried to collect. CUSTOMER RIGHT If the problem of no shows con- tinues ape-:, and American Ex- press refuses to go along with this inspired solution, they might find that the ‘customer is still always right.”’ Only this time the customer will be the restaurant owners, who will tend to take their business to competing credit card corpora- tions.