European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - June 5, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes june 1985 columns comments Mary Mcgrory mayor Goodfe a inf do if right in Philadelphia we do it right in Wilson Good said proudly when he was campaigning for mayor in i that boast is in shambles As Are 61 houses covering two blocks of the City of brotherly love and possibly the reputation of mayor who until the unbelievable events of last month was the most Dot Cdon City official in the with its first Black Philadelphia has been preening itself on the excellence of its race and its growing Fame As a Center of civility and Fine it has achieved worldwide notoriety As the Only american City Ever to be bombed and by its own Goode has properly assumed responsibility for this truly awesome his claim that the Evic Tion operation was except for the fire May Lake its place with the query of Lincoln about the play she saw at Fords he has faced with the same he would do it lets Hope he never has the he would be better to go to London and talk to the resident siege londoners Are old hands at dealing with violent and demented peo ple and have worked out a formula that is Worth the police move in they establish a huge presence in the contested they bring Large food communications they ostentatiously set up portable Toi the message they convey is that they have come to the corollary is that nobody is going any they say it has a Subtle effect on the people cutting Down on their feelings of Security and the strategy is simple to the besieged will eventually get the theory they will the strategy employed by the Philadelphia with the concurrence of their was they were in a they May have thought that the move forces had built tunnels that gave them an escape in which Case they could have deployed More that would have been better than what what happened has stunned the not since Bernhard Goetz opened fire on his fellow passengers in a Manhattan subway has anything quite so astonishing occurred in the annals of Urban the first reaction was one awed member of the Pennsylvania groping for a Prece Dent among prominent Hartline big City James Kilpatrick could Only Dick Daley never of did Frank whose encounter with the same crazed cult had earned him a reputation As a racist who persecuted Black Phila Moscow was Quick to cry barbarity Stockholm called it pure Clint Pennsylvania poli mumbled about the priority of looking after the whatever you Call the fact is that a bomb was dropped on an american on an overwhelmingly Black with the concurrence of its Black eleven bodies were found in the including those of four the question is what was the Rush the for Over a had heard complaints of respectable neighbors about the obscenity and violence of the move and had Forborne to Why did he feel the Nasty business had to be cleaned up immediately when it came to a head in the police standoff that followed delivery of an Evic Tion notice the baffling mystery is Why Wilson a Cool cat in a three piece a graduate of the Wharton a seasoned City a Man of storied caution and approved such an ultimate it is of that the word bomb was never mentioned in the councils of the the police commissioner prefers the euphemistic percussion it is possible that he believed the assurances that the weapon would not cause a it is also possible that he had no part in the Harrow ing decision to keep firefighters from fighting the Blaze for 90 minutes the fire chief said that sniper fire made it too Goode will have to explain to citizens who watched their Homes Burn to the ground Why they were deprived of this fundamental City serv water Cannon had been used earlier in the Goode May have been trying to avoid any comparison with who in a showdown with move or dered a which resulted in the death of a if he had forgotten about Rizzo and decided to be Goode might have done he is now a victim of the politicians mania to do something when even if its the wrong and doing Noth ing would be infinitely c 1985 Universal press Syndicate one safes Worth is equity proponents of that bizarre movement known As comparable Worth were whooping it up last the City Council of los Angeles had voted 121 for a Union contract that reportedly was intended to equate secretaries with garage attendants and librarians with unless 1 am there is much less Here than meets the these to speak or write of comparable Worth is to evoke the solemn foolishness witnessed in the state of the state engaged in an elaborate evaluation of its mostly male and mostly female Job a five member committee adopted a plan of numerical Points were awarded Accord ing to the committees judgment of 1 the knowledge and skill required for a Given Job 2 the mental de mands of the Job 3 the workers accountability on the Job and 4 the working conditions such As fumes and dirt on the when the scores were it appeared that the jobs of laundry worker and delivery truck for were jobs of comparable and a Federal judge late in 1983 decreed that the jobs must be equally the los Angeles Case was nothing like in los the City government met with negotiators for the american federation of county and municipal employees representing about of the cites As it the unions collective bargaining unit is made up of members in jobs that historically have been women secretaries and for six the negotiators went at the Union argued eloquently that these women jobs were irrationally no portentous study of comparable Worth Ever was made no conjectural values Ever were the Union won its the City agreed to raise the Entrance salaries of these of some members Over a three year period from an average of a month to an average of a at that Point in 1988 the new librarian and the new Gardener will Start at the same rate of but this is by not by nothing in the los Angeles process should set off cries of alarm among those of us who regard the Washington state process As essentially the voluntary agreement reached in los Angeles was the product of arms length bargaining the underlying premise was not comparable but simple equity by Washington let itself be transfixed by arbitrary and District judge Jack Tanner swallowed the numbers unless his decree is re it will Cost state taxpayers an estimated billion to equalize the washers and the Charles professor of economics at California state University in believes Tan ners opinion May Well be overturned on writ ing in government Union Baird contends that the subjective judgments of the Washington committee Are unimpressive As hard evidence of unlawful discrimination on account of the comparative Job he Are necessarily a different set of applying 45 factors instead of found no pay disparities Between jobs of comparable Worth on the Washington regardless of the outcome in comparable Worth has become the latest rallying cry for Wom ens thus far the concept appears to have been adopted by Only a handful of state and local govern but suits by women state echoing the Washington Are pending in Michi Hawaii and in the legis lature has ordered local governments to see that traditionally women jobs Are better paid by to the extent that these pay Scales voluntarily Are Only the most Rabid male chauvinist could what los Angeles wants to pay a librarian is the business of los the women May be discomfited when they find Bookish males competing for their out that s another what Baird deplores is the Prospect of substituting the decrees of seers and diviners for the function of the marketplace in fixing the value of it is Only a matter of time before some nit witted member of Congress proposes to write such wage boards into the 1963 equal pay when that Day let us Pray for a resounding vote of c 1985 Universal press Syndicate