Women Are Pinched By Salary Differential

Nurses' aides and "male attendants"-orderlies-do the same job. The difference at Harvard-affiliated Cambridge Hospital is the pay. Although the job responsibilities are alike, men receive an average of $10 more per week.

Both nurses' aides and orderlies take vital signs (pulse, blood pressure, respiration) and help to feed, clean, and move patients. The difference is that male aides can legally take care only of male patients, while nurses' aides work with both men and women.

Salaries for nurses' aides start at $94,50 per week and climb to a ceiling of $105.23. Orderlies, most of whom are college students with limited experience, start at $103.56 and eventually receive $115.77 per week.

"The salaries are different because the jobs are different," Dr. James Hartgering, Cambridge Commissioner of Public Health, said yesterday.

"I'm not exactly sure how they are different," he said, and cited "a big thick report" of a study financed by the Department of Labor, which details disparities between the jobs of nurses'aide and orderly at Cambridge Hospital.

In the same situation at Quincy City Hospital, a court ruled several months ago to require that the hospital pay nurses' aides back wages to 1967.

Hartgering cited a finding in Louisiana where a federal court overrode two former verdicts to assert that the positions of nurses' aide and orderly do differ and therefore the salaries should remain unequal.