Addressing our strategies, Lewis looks at the human rights model developed by the federal and Quebec governments in the 1970s, and the pro-active pay equity model (that relies on job evaluation) developed in Minnesota, Manitoba and Ontario in the 1980s. The human rights approach relies on individual complaints and has a dismal record (as of 1987, only 3.3% of women in the federal jurisdiction have benefited from the legislation enshrined in the Canadian Human Rights Act in 1978) but the pay equity models may be only marginally better. In all cases, the legislation has been applied to very narrow population groups-mostly in the public service.

Lewis's display of the legislative implementation process in the chapters entitled "The Pay Equity Programs" and "Job Evaluation" gives us firsthand understanding of state institutionalization of feminist demands. These sections are critical reading for feminists attempting to use state policy to promote women's equality. While the legislation undoubtedly has given some women more money, close questioning of the respondents exposes how our demands have been compromised in the process.

The legislation aimed at women in the public service in Minnesota and Manitoba was judged to be a success, but resistance to its application was encountered in other jurisdictions (eg. local municipalities in Minnesota, the public health sector in Manitoba). In Ontario the results of the legislation are still to be seen; pay equity plans for the public sector and private sector establishments over 500 are not due until January 1990. But of the 1.7 million women who are theoretically covered by The Pay Equity Act, it is expected that only 867,000 will be able to find male comparator groups as required by the legislation (1).

Lewis's major concern, however, with the current pay equity legislation is that the valuing of work rests on the use of job evaluation plans to measure skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions. "Job evaluation plans claim to be an objective method for determining the value of work. But... presenting a methodology as objective often serves to hide just whose interests are being promoted" (page 86).

Respondents' assessment seem to confirm her suspicions. "Virtually all our respondents agreed that there are serious problems with job evaluation," she writes, including the possibility that it leads to the "entrenchment of inequality" (page 88). And in spite of attempts to make the historically management - biased and - controlled job evaluation systems consistent with pay equity, experience in Oregon demonstrated the unwillingness of employers and consultants to make any changes that threaten existing wage hierarchies, which of course are used to justify lower wages for women.

Clearly we cannot leave pay equity legislation unattended in the hands of the state. Leading us through an assessment of why and how government has taken up our demands for pay equity and what we can expect from feminist advocates within the bureaucracy, Lewis urges feminists to make the unions work for them in implementing pay equity legislation and to concentrate on developing our own criteria to monitor it. Neither can we assume the current pay equity legislation will end wage discrimination. Lewis urges us to consider alternatives that do not rely on job comparison, such as increases in the minimum wages, or strategies that are negotiated with employers rather than legislated, such as changes in the wage structure.

Just Give Us the Money comes down hard on current pay equity legislation in Canada and the United States. It is a critique that may not be popular on first reading among those of us who have for years been directly involved in the struggle for and implementation of this legislation. But if we can measure the "value" of our own experience with this issue in terms of what we have learned as well as what we have or have not accomplished, maybe we can act on Lewis's final plea to "expand the forums for debate of our strategies to build on our experience and to move our interests forward".

Sue Findlay is a feminist activist living in Toronto. She is currently working on contract as a policy consultant with the Ontario Pay Equity Commission.

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1. See The Report to the Minister of Labour from the Ontario Pay Equity Commission on Sectors of the economy which are Predominantly Female, as Required by the Pay Equity Act, Section 33 (2) (e). January, 1989, pp.1-6