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Comparable worth or pay equity polbies have been used in the last decade as a strategy to reduce the male-female wage gap. The Equal Pay Act has had little signifbant impact on the gerKier wage gap because men and women do not work in the same job. Additbnally, affirmative actbn and other promotbn strategies do not affect the millbns of women who work in femaledominated jobs. Thus feminists and policy makers turned to the concept of equal pay for work of equal value to raise the wages of female-dominated jobs relative to other jobs.Despite an impressive amount of activity on pay equities, there is no standard operatbnat definition of equity or comparable worth (Cook, 1985). There are generally accepted theoretical concepts but little in the way of specifb guides to achieving equity in a partbular firm or organization. One generally accepted concept is that a comparable worth policy would pay equal wages for jobs of equal value, where value is measured by the skill, effort and responsibility required by the job. Similarly, a pay equity policy wouki attempt to eliminate discriminatbn against women in pay rates. Many authors use these concepts interchangeably (Evans and Nelson. 1989a; 1989b).These concepts are not precise. A policy whbh sets out to pay equal wages for jobs of equal value or to eliminate discriminatory elements in the pay plan has many avenues open to it. requiring numerous technbal and policy decisbns. The thesis of this paper is that comparable worth remains a polby which is implemented in an ad hoc fashion. The actual outcome in any partbular organization will be crafted by the important players who usually determine personnel and wage policies. In the public sector the outcome will be determined by |3olitbal arKJ administrative processes involving unbns, management, women's groups, elected offbials, consultants ar\d private sector businesses. These groups must decide on basb objectives as well as technbal issues such as measuring the value of jobs and determining the magnitude of current pay inequities.Thus pay equity is a point of struggle at the workplace, and basic outcomes can vary according to the relative power and orientatbn of the players, the latwr relations and politbal atnriosphere, and the objective conditions of the organization in questbn. This paper seeks to describe the potential interests and concerns of the major players in a public sector comparable worth project and how these interests can affect the outcome of the project. The orientation of the players toward pay equity is critical-a comparable worth policy can be designed j implemented with the cooperation of the parties, but it is relatively easy for

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four women were elected to the top offices of the Oregon Public Employees Union, OPEU/SEIU 503. The new Vice-President, Ann Montague, jubilantly exclaimed, &dquo;This is a concrete result of our pay equity struggle over ten years ago.&dquo; In the 1980s the union waged a seven-year battle to upgrade the wages of workers in predominately female jobs and in the process created a new cadre of activists and future leaders.The Oregon pay equity struggle was one of dozens of such campaigns in the 1980s, mostly in the public sector, which attempted to upgrade wage for undervalued female-dominated jobs, and the experience illustrates the achievements and disappointments of these campaigns. Most of the campaigns resulted in pay increases for women, but the upgrades often fell short of original expectations and sometimes had a small impact on the gender wage gap. Each campaign was waged independently, and it was difficult to translate gains from one jurisdiction to another. The reforms occasionally bogged down in technical classification and job evaluation issues or stalled because of recalcitrant management or internal union divisions. Unions had