Secretaries are gaining more respect as they widen and improve their skills and education, but their pay hasn`t kept up.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average nonunion secretary made $294 a week in 1987, and the average union-covered secretary $409 a week. Only about 15 percent of the nation`s 5.8 million secretaries-98 percent of whom are women-are union members.
Deborah Meyer, associate director of 9 to 5, the National Association of Working Women, says there also is ”a widening gap” between the wages of female clericals and the salaries of male executives.
The gap was $353 a week in 1987, up $17 a week from 1986, according to Meyer.
”As you look at inflation, clericals earn $2 a week less in real terms than they did in 1968,” she said. ”All workers earn $2 more. It may not sound like much, but it`s $104 a year. We`re losing ground. We should be gaining.”
And many secretaries are better educated than before. Meyer says 40 percent of all clerical workers have at least some college education, compared with one-fourth of workers in all service occupations.
The women`s advocate says that with adequate compensation, being a secretary ”can be a great job because you`re at the center of things. The secretary is the hub, the gatekeeper of the office.”
Additionally, ”Employers now realize that certain practices are not acceptable, specifically sex, race and age discrimination and sexual harassment.”
Marie Gazica, president of the Pittsburgh Chapter of Professional Secretaries International, agrees that secretaries are ”in a terrific situation because of computers. We`ve been pulled into management. A lot of managers don`t have the expertise we`ve already had, so we get in on some of the decision-making.
