poli-sci@ucbvax.ARPA (05/29/85)
From: JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA> Poli-Sci Digest Wed 29 May 85 Volume 5 Number 22 Contents: All about Comparable Worth [More msgs in the queue] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Friday, 17 May 1985 02:28:06 EDT From: Hank.Walker@cmu-cs-unh.arpa Subject: Re: comparable worth There are really several issues involved here. The first is whether past discrimination is still influencing the job market, and what, if anything, should be done about it. The second issue is what current non-discrimination factors are influencing pay differentials, and what, if anything, should be done about it. Note that I have not included current discriminatory practices because existing laws deal with them. The third issue is the intrinsic desirability of paying people based on their comparable worth. I think that past discrimination is only visible today as pipeline effects. Large corporations don't discriminate much at lower levels. Internal wage trends are monitored to catch this. At Southern California Edison (SCE) secretaries were receiving lower-than-expected raises. Their bosses had to be educated as to what a reasonable salary was. At higher managerial levels I do think that there is still some discrimination. Many of Pittsburgh's corporations are in "manly" fields like metalworking, with mostly old-fashioned men the top. This, combined with the pipeline effect, means that there is only one woman VP in town. A few months ago, we discussed how personal choices play an important role in an individual's salary. The most obvious effects are years worked, years worked continuously, and years at current firm. Women fall significantly below men in all these categories due to childbearing. Those who argue that childbearing is a personal choice all had moms who took the time. Day care seems the obvious solution, since it enables mothers to minimize the interruption in their career. On the other hand, I don't think I would have liked it if my mom had worked. Large organizations already practice a form of comparable worth. Jobs are assessed by their value to the company and the type of person needed to fill that job. The job market determines what wage is needed to attract and retain the desired employees. This sometimes leads to anomolies such as the corporation's Washington lobbyist being paid more than the president (SCE again). The key difference between wage and salary policies and the usual meaning of comparable worth is that in the latter, salary is directly related to the job value, rather than being used as a guideline modulated by the job market. If you believe in the law of supply and demand, then this is sheer nonsense. A president is more important than a lobbyist, so comparable worth would require that either the president be overpaid, or a crummy lobbyist be hired. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 May 85 10:40:34 PDT From: Richard Foy <foy@AEROSPACE.ARPA> Subject: Comparable worth The discussions opposing comparable worth discuss the corrective actions of a free market economy. They may be valid for a free market economy. What is actually happening related to female employment seems to indicate that they are. Apparently females are achieving their greatest success in relationship to males in starting their own businesses in the service sector. However most of the discussion about comparable worth relates to employment in large corporations and/or the government sector. Neither of these sectors in any way aproaches a free market economy. In fact the whole concept of corparations as licensed by the state and regulated by the SEC is a major deviation from the concept of a free market. As a stockholder in a corporation; ie a partial owner, try to exercise the rights one ordinarily expects as an owrner of something or thing about what responsibilites you have for damage done by a corporation in which you have stock. Ones actual rights and responsibilities are a long way from those which would be imposed and granted by a free market. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 May 85 10:56:41 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an aaa-60-s) <mcgeer%ucbkim@Berkeley> Subject: Comparable worth. Socialists, or statists if you prefer, remind me of the weeds the sprout up in my backyard -- just when I think I've finally gotten rid of them, they sprout up somewhere else and I have to trundle out the weed-eater again. Socialism is a bankrupt political and moral philosophy, with neither theoretical basis nor empirical success. Socialism has survived for a century on unsubstantiated claims that the state, and only the state, can provide wealth and equity. Socialism is a system that has been experimented with extensively over the globe in the past century, and continues in wide practice today. Any goods or service provided by the state has been abused and in continuous shortage. Despite this, the beast lives on, a tribute to its three sources of nourishment: the muddle-headed nonsense that passes for scholarship in American colleges today, the garbage delivered daily from the state and federal benches of the United States, and, last but not least, the unfailing ability of the voters to fall for a con man who promises them something for nothing. Thanks, I needed that. Just when we thought that socialism had been put to rest for good in the '70s, along came the "energy crisis" and proposals for forced restraint. Fortunately, the usual market mechanisms produced a glut of energy before federal regulation could ensure a perpetual shortage. But the socialists are never beaten for good, you know. They'll never admit that their system is a failure, a prescription for poverty for most and privilege for a quiche-eating few, despite a preponderance of evidence, and that socialism is a system specifically designed for the creation of scarcity. No. Instead they'll abandon a lost issue (energy), and busily think up a new justification for the enslavement of the people to the state. Enter comparable worth, the Trojan Horse of the '80s. I'm disappointed: this time it's not even clear that there's a problem to be solved. Oh, it's certainly true that women's average wages are lower than men's. But when factors such as age and experience are taken into account (younger and less experienced workers tend to earn less than their older and more experienced brethren), the wage disparity disappears: indeed, a case can be made that *men* suffer from wage discrimination. Oh, well. Comparable Worth is too good an employment opportunity for lawyers and bureaucrats to die quickly. Other states than Washington will be forced by the brain-damged nitwit federal courts to adopt a Washington-like program. My prediction is that some secretaries' wages will rise in the public sector. The state governments will then lay off clerical staff. In the meantime, publicity about above-market clerical wages will create a glut of such employees on the marketplace, which in turn will depress wages for such staff in the private sector. After a while, some court with something more between the ears than moldy tea will toss the whole nitwit idea out, leaving us with yet another valuable, expensive, and probably disregarded lesson in the evils and folly of socialist ideas. What can we do to stamp the beast out for good? I don't know the whole answer, but I do know the first step. First, let's kill all the lawyers. Stamp Out Socialism. Let's tell them Enough is Enough. Rick. [I know a better first step: Eliminate public schools. --Jo--JoSH] ------------------------------ Subject: Comparable Worth C: blows green road runners. Date: 17 May 85 23:04:04 PDT (Fri) From: Mike (Praiser of Bob) Meyer <mwm%ucbtopaz.CC@Berkeley> It seems that comparable worth amounts to little more than a job-specific minimum wage. As such, analysis of the minimum wage laws should apply to it (and vice-versa), and the results of comparable worth laws should be as good/bad (choose one) as the results of the minimum wage laws. <mike ------------------------------ End of POLI-SCI Digest - 30 - -------