Correspondents' Correspondence

...In fact, the only contemplated business exceptions are some specified industries, like mining and small firms employing up to five workers or partners...

...The reason: low grade employment and inadequate trade union protection for women...

...Kennedy not only carried the meeting after Mc-Intyre's opening remarks, he also led the attack against the Administration's energy policies...

...Like Britain's earlier, successful Race Relations Act, the current Equality for Women Bill is not designed to establish any unjustifiable pretense of equality between individuals...

...But their evident reluctance to come to grips with effective discrimination practiced against roughly half their populations may yet be evaluated by future historians as an expensive and cruel mistake...

...The interest that we senators have had is that in New England we've gotten the short end of every government oil allocation deal...

...This side of the Atlantic, female workers are the first to be thrown overboard when Europe's economic ship senses trouble ahead...

...We had to work with John Sawhill (former Federal Energy Office Administrator) for hours and hours before we ever even got him to understand the problem, contrary to what some media reports said about his vast knowledge...

...Despite considerable improvements over the past decade, "equality of opportunity and treatment still has a hollow ring for women in almost all countries," says an analysis issued by the International Labor Office in Geneva...

...Thomas McIntyre (D.-N.H...

...This continuous record continues even now...

...Britain's Equal Pay Act, providing for equality in remuneration, hours and work allocation, was passed into law in 1970 with a five-year grace on enforcement...

...The meeting ended...

...A recent Capitol Hill meeting illustrates the point...

...But you must know, Secretary Morton, that the credibility of the Interior Department is at rock bottom...

...Some traditional male enclaves may nevertheless remain true to their character...

...I want to thank Secretary Morton for coming today...

...Each of the other senators squeezed in only a few words...

...Margaret Thatcher, the recently elected leader of the British Conservative opposition party, could thus still be banned from the Carlton Club.-Thomas Land President Kennedy Washington-Despite the Senator's announced decision not to seek the office, this visiting New Hampshire political reporter found that Edward M. Kennedy (D.-Mass...

...Statistically, women comprise a third of the world's labor force, earn half as much as men and, taking household duties into account, work almost twice as long...

...Your figures about the oil crisis, by the way, run almost directly in opposition to those of the Library of Congress...

...There is discrimination enough in Britain without invoking a new instance in statutory form...

...Half-hearted efforts at implementing somewhat similar proposals are being made in many countries (including, of course, the United States...

...Leahy had his picture taken with Kennedy and Morton and that was that.-Kathy Starbuck...

...The industry people know more about it than you Administration people do, I must say...

...A detailed analysis by the Commission lists Italy as the toughest on women among the nine...

...Maximum compensation would be limited to $12,500...

...Now you have given us your figures...

...Abraham Ribicoff (D.-Conn...

...Official figures published in Britain show an average weekly earning of $115 for men and $64.50 for women...

...Lowell P. Weicker (R.-Conn...

...Female Equality London-Britain is preparing to outlaw sexual discrimination in employment, training, housing, education, plus areas involving the provision of credit, insurance and a vast range of other services...

...Rather, the proposed legislation is to do away with inequities of opportunity robbing real merit-whether in talent, knowledge, reliability, or physical aptitudes-of expression and reward...

...The deadline, set for next December, coincides with accelerating wage inflation in this country accompanied by growing unemployment...

...It was the oil industry...

...and the Institute of Directors here boasts 1,000 female members-an impressive number until you learn that it represents less than 2 per cent of the total membership...

...Edward W. Brooke (R.-Mass...

...Other senators attending that day were Edmund S. Muskie (D.-Me...

...The others stood...

...We have other figures that are different, and here you are moving ahead with your own program...

...In the United States, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which would make sex discrimination by the Federal government illegal, is politely being sidestepped after Congressional approval three years ago...

...In the long term, it is considered certain to have a profound impact on the functioning of the whole of society, heralding an essential readjustment of a set of commonly held basic values related to sex and more suited to feudal or early industrial conditions than to the needs of the modern world...

...The new law will complement the Equal Pay Act, which comes into effect late this year...

...While likely to alter the operation of only a few industries, it will probably quicken the pace of inflation, at least in the short term...

...The atmosphere was one of deference mixed with resignation about having Kennedy carry the ball...

...President by a number of his colleagues...

...According to the Brussels Commission of the nine-member Common Market, over 40 per cent of the 3.3 million unemployed are women, up 10 per cent from last year...

...A wide-ranging legislative package is awaiting approval by lawmakers in Ottawa, too, involving sexual discrimination in immigration, citizenship, pensions, and unemployment insurance...

...The Labor Administration's new Equality for Women Bill, to be enforced immediately on passage through Parliament, will establish an Equal Opportunities Commission under the Home Office (Britain's version of the Department of Justice) with a staff of 400 and a multi-million-pound budget...

...Private clubs (where the present legislative proposals may well have been conceived) will retain their freedom to discriminate as they wish, as long as they remain nonprofit-making...

...Banking, finance and insurance are likely to be immediately affected, since their practice of severely limiting credit facilities and other services to women without male guarantors will become illegal...

...That United Nations organization is to ask delegates attending its annual conference later this spring to proclaim the right of female workers to equal treatment in employment and to draw up a plan for implementing it...

...and a Democratic newcomer from Vermont, Patrick Leahy...

...Kennedy sat on the chairman's right, Secretary Morton on his left...

...For some time now, New England senators have been trying to work out a coordinated regional energy plan for presentation to the Administration...

...chairs the caucus, and I attended a session in his office at which the then Department of the Interior Secretary, Rogers C. B. Morton, was the guest...

...Damages could be awarded on many grounds, including injured feelings...

...North of the border, Canada is expected shortly to make additions to its Labor Standards Act that would outlaw discrimination on grounds of sex in government-controlled industries, such as transportation and some giant corporations...

...He told the group that perhaps each of them should assign an administrative aide to work together with Secretary Morton's people on "follow-up and keeping communications open...

...Why didn't you talk to us about it...

...Every time we get a set of figures they are contradictory...

...It is frustrating...

...Its proponents argue persuasively that society can only profit by such a radical change...

...Nevertheless, delaying the implementation of the law, as the authoritative, conservative London Times put it editorially, "is only superficially tempting...

...As Leahy, the new boy in the club, started to say something about how it is for folks in Vermont, Kennedy smiled and stood up...

...is already being treated as Mr...

...The new law is also to give aggrieved parties access to county courts or, in cases of employment, to industrial tribunals...

...ERA has been ratified by 34 of the 38 states whose approval is required for passage of the 27th Amendment...

...Advertising will be covered, and potential employers could find themselves challenged to explain in public their reasons for seeking in newspaper job columns female waitresses or male security guards...

...But, of course, they have an industry attitude...

...Why couldn't Ed Brooke's program, for example, even have gotten a hearing...

...The proportion of female workers holding responsible positions is highest in France, where women tend to earn the same rates and fringe benefits as their male colleagues...

...Besides, you've come up with this program from the President without any input from us...

...Tough legislation-establishing a wider scope for enforcement and a more comprehensive legal machinery than contemplated by lawmakers anywhere else in the world during this International Women's Year-is expected to be passed by Parliament here in the fall...

...I could not see Muskie's face during much of the meeting, but when I did catch a glimpse of him, he was staring at a framed print of The Old Man of the Mountain hanging on McIntyre's wall...

...It was not the environmentalists, as some say, who jobbed us every time...

...Pay is low, hours are long, and in the North the majority of the women are employed in sweatshops with appalling minimum sanitary and safety conditions...