6 - Friday, June 19, 1987 ~ North Shore News

News Viewpoint —

Work together

to

4 IOLENCE and aggressive behavior are not ey solutions ending

the Canada Post

management-labor conflict. Instead of gaining leverage in the nation-wide postal dispute, picketing letter carriers who resort to violence against replacement workers are only escalating an

already-emotional situation.

Such behavior will do

nothing ¢o promote an amicable settlement. If anyone should be feeling aggressive, though, it

should be the public.

A ‘long-term postal strike would

homeowners and cripple

inconvenience some businesses and in-

dustries — the individuals and companies paying the taxes to support the horrendous government-owned corperation. The public deserves better service and

better use of its tax dollars.

Post office officials cannot bow to every union whim when they are held under the knife of a national shutdown. Threats, anger, aggression and violence will not expediate an agreement — it will only hinder one.

In an effort to get the mail out, management has taken a hard-line approach against the union by hiring replacement workers — but so it should. Letter carriers must remeniber they are not just working for their supervisors, they are working for the public. If the carriers don’t want their jobs to be replaced, they should go back to work and back to the bargaining

tables,

Communication and cooperation will go a fot far- ther in winning concessions than.aggression.

Age shoul

RETIREMENT, IT seems to me, is probably one of those things — like summer vacation — where anticipation out-

shines the reality.

Vacation dreams don’t include mosquitos on the dock, or lost luggage, or line-ups at the best tourist spots.

Nor do retirement fantasies ever spend much time on health con- cerns, the shrinking value of the fixed income or the difficulty of shifting gears from a busy schedule to planning for an endless string of Saturdays.

There are many who would say to stop right there, I’m all wet. “}’ve worked hard and deserve a break from the workaday world.”

Fair enough, but we’ve all heard enough stories about, or perhaps experienced close-up, retirements that didn’t go as planned, to say

Feature Service of the National Citizens’ Coalition

A RECENT REPORT on wages issued by Statscan seemingly provided new ammunition to those who support ‘‘pay equity’’ legis- lation for women.

The report showed that women working full time earned about two-thirds of what men working full time did. This has been seized upon by some as proof ‘that women are discriminated against in the workplace and that private businesses must be forced by law to increase the wage of female workers.

What the proponents of ‘“‘pay equity” refuse to recognize or ac- cept, however, are the relatively simple explanations for this ‘‘wage gap’’. These explanations are sup- ported by some compelling — and decisive — evidence.

Marriage and family respon- sibilities tend to increase the wages of men and decrease the wages of women. This. is because many women choose to leave the work force entirely to bear and rear children, or reduce their work ef- forts to part time. At the same

the least.

All of which is to raise the ques- tion of mandatory retirement. Why should anyone-be forced to retire at 65, or at any age for that matter, if you want to get down to the principle involved?

The federal government has moved recently to scrap mandatory retirement for public servants, a move which is expected to in- fluence the provinces and their bureaucrats.

At the same time, though, the forced gold ‘watch syndrome is becoming more common because

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most anti-discrimination rules do not extend past age 65.

As well, private pension plans usually contain a clause that re-

* quires employees to retire by a fix-

ed age, commonly 65, which is also the normal time people begin to collect government pensions.

There are good arguments in favor of forcing older employees to step down. Such workers tend to cost more in terms of salary and benefits, so employers could cut costs by putting the seniors out to pasture.

With rapid advances in techno- logy, old jobs become: obsolete, requiring workers to re-train con- tinually. And that’s easier and probably more efficient for young people to do.

Speaking of young people, if the codgers linger on the job, where

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will the job openings be down the road? .

Opponents of mandatory retirement counter that most new jobs will come from smail business, especially from firms which don’t even exist today. Thus most new jobs won’t be as depen- dent on worker turnover as much as.on a healthy smail-business sec- tor.

In addition, they say, forcing a man or woraan out of the job means wasting years of experience and skills and sacrificing more years of potential high productivi- ty. And mandatory retirement will put extra, unneeded pressure on already expensive pension pro- grams, especial’y in view of the

fact that the birthrate is declining °

aud the population as a whole is geiting cider.

Pay discrimination myth

time, husbands generally work harder to support their families. One American study showed that divorced, separated, and single men work 20 per cent fewer hours than married men and even _with the same age and credentials, bachelors earn less than 60 per cent as much money as_ husbands. Women raising children interrupt their work and shun travel, over- time and weekend work, and are less willing to relocate. One American study found that par- enthood ‘“‘increased men’s desires for promotion and their efforts to

achieve it and decreased both among women.”’

A recent study by the respected Fraser Institute showed that women who had never been mar- ried in 1981 earned 83.1 per cent of what never-married men did. The study also says that if the data were adjusted to include other fac- tors such as education and age, “the female-male gap would vanish entirely.””

The Fraser Institute had Statscan compile a special report, using available data, which found

that in 1971 single, university- educated women earned 10 per cent more than similar men did. In 1982, the figure was !0 per cent less. Obviously these women are not subjected to pay discrimination in the work place

The point is tha «hen men and women are equally qualified, the Statistics indicate they receive roughly equivalent wages. In other words, a ‘‘discriminatory wage gap’’ does not exist.

It is these factors, and not discrimination, which account for the income gap between genders.

Entire contents © 1987 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved.

worekee

er to workin;

But surely the crux of this whole issue is freedom of choice. People should be free to decide whe: they wish to hang it up and go fishing, or whatever.

For many, that would mean tak- ing early retirement. But the bet- ting here is that more would keep working for the satisfaction, for the feeling of participation and self-worth that a day’s work gives.

‘That’s the way independent business people see it. In a recent

‘survey of its 76,000 members na-

tionwide, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business recorded 2 to I against mandatory retire- ment.

It’s understandable. For many people, but especially for those who run their own businesses, their work is their life.

CFIB Feature Service

When this evidence is accepted, “pay equity” is reduced to a flaw- ed solution to a non-existent pro- blem.

Unfortunately, legislation to impose pay equity on the private sector — now being debated in Ontario — will be harmful. Its implementation will cause job losses for lower-paid women because businesses will find the wages of their female employees artificially overpriced. Further, pay equity will have a chilling ef- fect on investment in provinces such as Ontario where it has been adopted. Business will not ap- preciate government Officials dic- tating what wages they should pay to their employees. No doubt both Canadian and international! in- vestors will respond by diverting money into the freer environment south of the border.

Pay equity is demeaning to women. It will cause many to question whether working women are getting part of their incomes because of their gender or because of their competence.

An income gap between men and women does exist as the latest evidence from Statscan shows. However, pay equity is an unfair method of dealing with the gap because it is based on the false premise that discrimination exists.