[net.women] Equal Pay For Work of Equal Value is a serious blow to Women

brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (07/19/85)

Well, the Ontario Government announced today that it would soon be
bringing in EPFWOEV legislation in the public sector.  All well and
good (sort of) because the government does have the right to control
the pay of civil serpents, and it of course should not practice unfair
sexual discrimination.

(That there are too many of them is another story.  So is the fact that
often this will boil down to "He's overpaid, and thus she should be
overpaid, too."  I do wish we could do something about the massive number
of jobs that will be destroyed in the private sector while we make sure
everybody is overpaid the same.)

But the Feminist lobby that worked for this was not satisfied.  They wanted
to know when the law would come into the private sector.  When a secretary
in the private sector would make as much as the groundskeeper because she's
better educated, to paraphrase.

They should curse the day such legislation comes.

Let's say a secretary makes on average $13K.  But the wage police say that
such a secretary should make $16K.  Where does this $3K come from?
As an employer, I know.  It means that I will wait longer to hire a
secretary.  If I were a big business, it would mean fewer secretaries in
general.  You will have to be higher up before you rate a private secretary.

The result - even fewer jobs for secretaries.  Sad to say because of
sex sterotypes this also means fewer jobs for women.  Of course, to
coin a phrase, those who have the jobs will get richer while those without
(and those layed off) will get poorer.

Actually this has nothing to do with sexism.  If you artificially jack
up the price of anything you will make a few individuals quite rich and
eventually destroy (or come close to destroying) an industry.
Look what almost happened to US automakers because they sat behind protection
rather than innovating.

Of course, you may feel the price is worth it because of how it helps the
finances and dignity of those who do have jobs.  Perhaps it is, until
their taxes go up about $3K to pay for the people on welfare!

Ideology has little to do with it.  It's facts and numbers, plain and simple.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473

gadfly@ihu1m.UUCP (Gadfly) (07/20/85)

--
> Well, the Ontario Government announced today that it would soon be
> bringing in EPFWOEV legislation in the public sector...
> 
> But the Feminist lobby that worked for this was not satisfied.
> They wanted to know when the law would come into the private sector...
> 
> They should curse the day such legislation comes.
> 
> Let's say a secretary makes on average $13K.  But the wage police
> say that such a secretary should make $16K.  Where does this $3K
> come from?  As an employer, I know.  It means that I will wait longer
> to hire a secretary.  If I were a big business, it would mean fewer
> secretaries in general.  You will have to be higher up before you
> rate a private secretary.
> 
> The result - even fewer jobs for secretaries.  Sad to say because of
> sex sterotypes this also means fewer jobs for women...

> Ideology has little to do with it.  It's facts and numbers, plain
> and simple.
> 
> Brad Templeton

I'd love to see either the public or private sectors try to make do
with substantially fewer secretaries--the whole fabric of business
would fall apart.  I'd also love to see this endless piddle of
simplistic libertarian dogma--submitted entirely by oh so rational
men--the hell out of net.women.  You've made your point, guys--now
go beat each other up somewhere else.
-- 
                    *** ***
JE MAINTIENDRAI   ***** *****
                 ****** ******  20 Jul 85 [2 Thermidor An CXCIII]
ken perlow       *****   *****
(312)979-7753     ** ** ** **
..ihnp4!iwsl8!ken   *** ***

sophie@mnetor.UUCP (07/21/85)

It's very nice of you to worry about us women running out of jobs, but
you really don't have to Brad.  We'll make do with higher wages and less jobs,
maybe some of us will even have to steal some of your jobs, who knows...

-- 
Sophie Quigley
{allegra|decvax|ihnp4|linus|watmath}!utzoo!mnetor!sophie

sck@elsie.UUCP (Steve Kaufman) (07/23/85)

In article <531@ihu1m.UUCP>, Ken Perlman (gadfly@ihu1m.UUCP)
concludes his rebuttal to someone else's argument against
"comparable worth" pay scales (Equal Pay For Work of Equal Value)
with:

> 
> I'd also love to see this endless piddle of
> simplistic libertarian dogma--submitted entirely by oh so rational
> men--the hell out of net.women.  You've made your point, guys--now
> go beat each other up somewhere else.
>

	Where is it written that only certain points of view
	are allowed to be expressed in net.women?

phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) (07/25/85)

So the argument seems to be that if you have to pay women more than
they get right now there won't be as many jobs for them and so EPFWEV
is a bad idea? I don't buy this at all. If a person is worth a certain
wage, she should get it. I suspect that people who want low paying menial
jobs can find them anyway.

--