Friday, November 16, 1984
Pago 14
Daily Nebraskan
Welsch reappointed to
DN editor-in-chief post
Chris Welsch has been reap
pointed editor in chief of the
Daily Nebraskan for the spring
semester.
Along with naming Welsch edi
tor, the UNL Publications Board
Wednesday approved the pur
chase of the Associated Press wire
service for the spring semester,
should Nebraska defeat Oklahoma
in Saturday's football contest.
According to Welsch, should
Nebraska win, the Daily Nebras
kan would publish a football maga
zine recapping the Husker's sea
son. The profits from the supple
ment would pay for the wire
service. Should the Huskers lose,
he said, the Daily Nebraskan
wouldn't be able to buy the wire
service until August.
T
fT-"',' -n
0 jTOimissi!
With the addition of the wire
service, the paper's second, he
said, the Daily Nebraskan will be
able to include important local,
state and national news.
In the past, Welsch, a senior
journalismEnglish major from
Lincoln, has been a sports, news,
and arts and entertainment re
porter, copy editor, night news
editor, wire editor, supplements
editor, along with being editor in
chief this semester for the Daily
Nebraskan.
One change to be made next
semester is the development of
an editorial board, Welsch said.
The board, he said, would con
sist of himself, t he editorial page
editor, the editorial writer, the
news editor and an advertising
representative. The board will set
editorial policy, he said.
All editorials will be unsigned,
and will be the opinion of the
Daily Nebraskan, he said.
Another change, he said, will
be to restructure the news desk,
which will consist of the news
editor, campus editor, wire edi
tor and layout editor.
A third change, he said, will be
to make the senior reporter posi
tion more lucrative.
Welsh said applications for
editorial positions will be availa
ble Tuesday.
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Continued from Page 1
The Washington State case was
based on a 1974 comparable
worth study authorized by then
Gov. Dan Evans, now a U.S. sena
tor. The study found that women
employees earned an average of
20 percent less than men doing
comparable work. According to a
point system used to evaluate the
jobs, certain clerk-typists in
Washington should be making the
s&ine as warehouse workers, and
practical nurses the equivalent of
offset-press operators.
Washington State says the rul
ing would cost about $770 million
in back pay and fringe benefits
and add $130 million a year to
the payroll
Regardless of whether the
courts continue to rule in favor of
comparable worth, pay-equity
studies are sweeping the nation.
More than 25 states includ
ing Michigan, Iowa, Missouri,
Connecticut, Illinois and Wiscon
sin already have commissioned
pay-equity studies.
Minnesota pioneered pay-equity
policy-making in 1982 by passing
legislation requiring all local units
of government to develop policies
leading to pay equity by Oct. 1,
19S5.
"YcuVe come a long way,
baby, but..."
In Nebraska, a pay-equity study
bill introduced in January 1984
failed by six votes on final read
ing. LB 700 would have approp
riated $175,000 to hire a consult
ing firm to compare state jobs on
the bash of effort, skill, responsi
bility and working conditions. The
biH also would have established a
committee made up of employees
and management to make pay
equity decisions.
Jean OUara, director of the
Nebraska Commission on the
Status of Women, helped draft
the pay-equity bill. G'Hara said
her office will help draft another
pay-equity bill for next year if
senators, women's groups and
labor unions continue to support
comparable worth.
Timothy Loudon, a field repre
sentative lawyer for the Nebraska
Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission, said his office has
received no pay-equity complaints
so far. But the federal EEOC has
more than 250 complaints pend
ing across the nation.
Loudon said Nebraska's EEOC
has started training representa
tives on the legal aspects of pay
equity so they are prepared for
future cases.
BiH Oberg, a Nebraska State
Personnel Department compen
sation analyst, said the state cur
rently uses a job-classification
system to ensure equal pay for
equal work. A pay-equity study
would allow the state to compare
two dissimilar jobs, such as a
secretary and a carpenter.
Oberg said the personnel de
partment staff is too small to
conduct a pay-equity study of its
own. Women's groups must con
vince legislators that a study is
necessary, because the Legisla
ture must appropriat e money for
it, he said.
OUara said that in Nebraska,
as well as across the nation,
women's groups must battle com
mon myths about pay equity to
convince legislators that studies
are necessary. For example,
O'Hara said, three major myths
are:
Myth 1: Dissimilar jobs cannot
be compared because it would be
like comparing apples and
oranges.
The U.S. Department of Labor
has published the Dictionary of
Occupational Titles for decades,
O'Hara said. The dictionary ranks
jobs from the most important
and most valuable to the least
important and least valuable.
More than 75 U.S., state and
local governments already have
done pay-equity studies and found
that it was possible to compare
jobs, O'Hara said.
Myth 2: Pay equity would inter
fere with the free market system.
"The reality is that the free
market system is being interfered
with right now," O'Hara said. "It is
holding down women's wages."
For example, O'Hara said, nurses
were in short supply last year in
the Denver area, yet their salar
ies did not increase with their
demand. Hospital administrators
had met each year to set the
salaries of the Denver nurses.
Myth 3: Women's wages are
lower because women work
around their families.
Lower pay is partly related to
the way women work, O'Hara
said. Many quit their jobs for a
few years to raise children. Oth
ers decline a promotion because
of responsibilities at home.
But a study by the National
Academy of Sciences shows that
different work habits and educa
tional levels account for only half
the difference. The rest is attrib
uted to discrimination, O'Hara
said.
Myth 4: Paying women what
their jobs are worth would cost
too much and lead to economic
chaos.
OTIara said that across the
nation, pay-equity studies have
shown the need for an increase of
about 2 percent of the total
amount budgeted for state sal
ries. But, she said, Nebraska's
increase may differ.
"You've come a lrg way,
baby, but.."
Cost was the major holdup for
Nebraska's pay-equity study,
O'Hara said.
"Several senators are unfamil
iar with the pay-equity concept,"
OUata said. "Some know what it
is and don't like the philosophy.
Many think it would cost too
much."
Oberg said many senators also
were afraid of the consequences
of a pay-equity study.
"Once the study is completed, a
lot of people fear that it's a smok
ing gun," Oberg said. "It puts you
in the position of having to enforce
it."
But, O'Hara said, a pay-equity
study would not tell the govern
ment what to pay employees.
"It will say that you can't dis
criminate anymore, and you're
going to have to figure out, em
ployer, how to overcome the dis
crimination that's built into the
pay classification system."
Frosty Chapman, director of
the Nebraska State Department
of Personnel, says he thinks pay
equity is not the answer. The
mass of women in low-paying
jobs shows an affirmative action
problem, rather than wage dis
crimination, he said.
"There are not enough women
in high paying jobs," Chapman
said. "We're changing that through
aggressive affirmative action pro
grams. Hi ere are now more female
agency heads than ever before."
Chapman, who testified as a
neutral party at legislative hear
ings, said pay equity contradicts
supply and demand economics
and could not be tied in with the
marketplace.
Despite the failure of Nebras
ka's pay-equity proposal,, com
parable worth is becoming a real
ity across the United States.
The Supreme Court has brought
relief to some victims of wage dis
crimination without disrupting
the economy. But more impor
tantly, the court has opened new
doors for women.
And as more state governments
adopt pay equity, the changes
could spread to the private busi
ness sector, raising the salaries of
millions of working women.
As the cigarette advertisement
suggests, women have made some
strides economically. But the
1930s woman has not. bridgsd all
the gaps. The new caption tells it
all: "YouVe come a long way, baby,
but youVe still got a long way to
go."
