mfs@mhuxr.UUCP (SIMON) (02/06/85)
How about letting the abortion and pornography debates (flame contests? :-) simmer for a while and shift to something else? What do you usenetters think of the concept of "equal pay for comparable work"? As I understand it, this is to reduce the difference between pay scales in "male dominated" (e.g. truck drivers) vs "female dominated" (e.g. nurses, secretaries) occupations. There would presumably have to be an equivalency chart or something. This raises a lot of questions: who draws up the chart? how about occupations that arise after the chart is drawn up (for example, if we had had such a chart 3 years ago, would it have contained the "toxic waste cleaner-upper", or something like that)? does this not constitute the establishment of national pay scales (e.g. socialism)? etc, etc. Any ideas or comments? Marcel Simon
cliff@unmvax.UUCP (02/07/85)
> What do you usenetters think of the concept of "equal pay for comparable > work"? As I understand it, this is to reduce the difference between > pay scales in "male dominated" (e.g. truck drivers) vs "female dominated" > (e.g. nurses, secretaries) occupations. There would presumably have to > be an equivalency chart or something. It is a crock. Supply and demand sets fair wages. If a woman wants the extra money associated with driving a truck, she can try to get a rig or work for an agency and drive trucks... > This raises a lot of questions: who draws up the chart? how about > occupations that arise after the chart is drawn up (for example, if we had > had such a chart 3 years ago, would it have contained the "toxic waste > cleaner-upper", or something like that)? does this not constitute > the establishment of national pay scales (e.g. socialism)? etc, etc. Yes, it does constitute the establishment of national pay scales, albeit not by the propossed laws themselves, but by how they will be interpretted. It is like affirmative action and quotas. Quotas are not required by law, but if you don't meet them you get strung by your thumbs. --Cliff [Matthews] {purdue, cmcl2, ihnp4}!lanl!unmvax!cliff {csu-cs, pur-ee, convex, gatech, ucbvax}!unmvax!cliff 4744 Trumbull S.E. - Albuquerque NM 87108 - (505) 265-9143
suki@reed.UUCP (Monica Nosek) (02/08/85)
In article <239@mhuxr.UUCP> mfs@mhuxr.UUCP (SIMON) writes: >What do you usenetters think of the concept of "equal pay for comparable >work"? As I understand it, this is to reduce the difference between >pay scales in "male dominated" (e.g. truck drivers) vs "female dominated" >(e.g. nurses, secretaries) occupations. There would presumably have to >be an equivalency chart or something. > >Marcel Simon Yes, and as Marcel noted, who would make up the chart? I wonder how the chart-makers will equate jobs. Can you really say that one job has the same "value" as another in assigning salaries without inciting some group or another to riot? It's a step in the right direction, I think, but what I would **IDEALLY** like to see is the whole concept made unnecessary: I'd like to see men and women able to compete equally for jobs in a common job market, not a "male-dominated" or "female-dominated" delineated one. I'd like to hear what the netters have to say; let's leave the abortion issue to net.abortion, hey? -- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Monica Nosek Reed College, Portland, OR "Double it!"
jeff@rtech.ARPA (Jeff Lichtman) (02/10/85)
> > What do you usenetters think of the concept of "equal pay for comparable > work"? As I understand it, this is to reduce the difference between > pay scales in "male dominated" (e.g. truck drivers) vs "female dominated" > (e.g. nurses, secretaries) occupations. There would presumably have to > be an equivalency chart or something. > > This raises a lot of questions: who draws up the chart? how about > occupations that arise after the chart is drawn up (for example, if we had > had such a chart 3 years ago, would it have contained the "toxic waste > cleaner-upper", or something like that)? does this not constitute > the establishment of national pay scales (e.g. socialism)? etc, etc. > > Any ideas or comments? > > Marcel Simon I heard a lawyer talking about this issue on a radio talk show not too long ago. According to him (I don't remember his name), the issue is that specific jobs which are held mostly by women pay less than comparable jobs which are held mostly by men. For example, the state of California pays barbers more than it pays hairdressers, even though the latter job takes more skill. In cases like this a lot of progress can be made without having to make standard pay scales, because the discrimination takes place within a single organization. All that has to be shown is that the organization pays differently for jobs which require essentially the same skills and level of responsibility, and the courts will rule that the employer discriminates. In cases where there are no comparable jobs within the organization (what is comparable to nursing?), the approach is to try to show that the organization pays more to employees with less skill and training. For example, if the state of California paid more to truck drivers than it did to nurses, one could claim discrimination because nursing requires more training and carries more responsibility. To decide what nurses employed by the state of California *should* be paid, the court would have to determine which state of California jobs not dominated by women required similar skills and responsibilities. Failing this, the court would try to find where in the progression of skill and responsibility nursing fits, and extrapolate the correct pay from this. The lawyer said that most large organizations (including government agencies and companies) have formulas that they use internally to determine pay based on education, experience, and responsibility. Note that neither of these cases requires establishment of a national pay scale. The object is to make each employer pay men and women with similar skills and responsibilites equally. If this happens, then equal pay for comparable work should follow, even between organizations. This is because employers have to compete with each other for employees; if you're being paid badly because your employer doesn't have comparable male-dominated jobs to pull up your pay, then you can look for a job with an employer which *has* been forced to pay its women well. The poor-paying employer will be faced with the choice of either paying better or getting employees who can't land the good- paying jobs. No regulation should be necessary; if each employer is forced to pay fairly within the organization then the job market should balance itself out. As a side note, one of the reasons that "women's" jobs have always paid poorly is that other job markets haven't been open to women. This forced the supply of prospective employees for these jobs to exceed the demand; thus the low price of labor in these jobs. Now that women are "allowed" to be executives, engineers, police, etc., the most intelligent and best educated women won't be as likely to seek the low-paying "women's" jobs any more. But many of these jobs (teacher, nurse, secretary) are very important. Unless these jobs start paying better, we will be in trouble as a society. Of course, if my theories about comparable pay and job markets are correct, then this will take care of itself. Please don't flame me on this; I'm not trying to say that fairness will have bad effects and therefore we shouldn't be fair. Rather, I am saying that people in traditional "women's" jobs should be paid what they were always worth. Also, please understand that I don't really believe that everything will work as smoothly as I outlined above. There are many forces besides supply and demand that can effect a market. I don't believe in absolute capitalism. I do believe that if employers are forced to treat women equally within their own organizations, then the situation will be greatly improved without having to resort to government regulated pay scales. -- Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.) aka Swazoo Koolak
suki@reed.UUCP (Monica Nosek) (02/13/85)
In article <135@rtech.ARPA> jeff@rtech.ARPA (Jeff Lichtman) writes: > >In cases where there are no comparable jobs within the organization (what is >comparable to nursing?), the approach is to try to show that the organization >pays more to employees with less skill and training. For example, if the state >of California paid more to truck drivers than it did to nurses, one could claim >discrimination because nursing requires more training and carries more >responsibilities. > >-- >Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.) >aka Swazoo Koolak One of the major problems I see, however, is assigning value to certain jobs. Granted, nursing is very important, and I know nurses work hard (my mom has been a nurse since before I was born--I've seen how much time and skill needs to be put in), but some truck drivers also perform important jobs. For instance, sanitation workers? The man or woman who collects my garbage probably hasn't been required to complete the equivalent of nursing school, but anyone who has seen what happens to New York when the sanitation workers strike knows that they are important workers. *PLEASE* don't get me wrong and think that I'm equating garbage collectors and nurses; I'm just pointing out that education and skill aren't the only measures of job worth. As I've said before, I would ideally like to see "comparable pay" unnecessary, because I'd like to see "women's work" and "men's work" become history. Until we achieve that, though, it looks as though comparable worth will be a second-rate alternative. -- -------------------------------------------------------------- Monica Nosek reed!suki
edhall@randvax.UUCP (Ed Hall) (02/14/85)
> > What do you usenetters think of the concept of "equal pay for comparable > > work"? As I understand it, this is to reduce the difference between > > pay scales in "male dominated" (e.g. truck drivers) vs "female dominated" > > (e.g. nurses, secretaries) occupations. There would presumably have to > > be an equivalency chart or something. > It is a crock. Supply and demand sets fair wages. If a woman wants the extra > money associated with driving a truck, she can try to get a rig or work for > an agency and drive trucks... > --Cliff [Matthews] ``Supply and demand sets fair wages?'' Talk about crocks! Only someone who works in a field like computer science, which is highly paid and has a net shortage of workers, could believe that such an economic theory reflects the real world. It comes from an order of economic thinking that wants to treat labor as just another commodity, and not consider what the ``labor market'' means in terms of human lives. It comes from a false conception of economics, which sees the market as a mathematical entity, and not as the social, political, and psychological interactions of human beings exchanging labor, goods, and currency. (It's funny how so many people seem to think of the statistics which *measure* the economy as somehow *being* the economy.) Women's wages are lower because of social institutions, not because of supply and demand. How else do you explain the fact that a female- dominated occupation such as nursing, for which demand exceeds supply, is paid so much less than a male-dominated occupation such as truck- driving, in which supply and demand are roughly equal? Especially when you consider the relative level of skills involved... -Ed Hall decvax!randvax!edhall
oaf@mit-vax.UUCP (Oded Feingold) (02/15/85)
<right left>
In article <2306@randvax.UUCP> edhall@randvax.UUCP (Ed Hall) writes:
Women's wages are lower because of social institutions, not because
of supply and demand. How else do you explain the fact that a
female-dominated occupation such as nursing, ... is paid so much
less than a male-dominated occupation such as truck-driving?
Without contesting the injustice of such a system, consider economic
multipliers. A nurse can make incremental improvements in a small number
of patients' lives, and under less favorable conditions may simply
maintain the status quo. But the truck-driver determines whether the
factories get their materials and keep on producing. Certainly a more
direct payoff.
Also, nurses usually don't work for 72 hours at a stretch, nor sleep in
their rigs with pistols in hand, waiting for someone to steal the truck.
Nor does a nurse's 2-second lapse of attention wipe out a busload of
schoolchildren.
So I don't think that training or skill are or should be the sole
determinants of wages. Things like fear, pain, fatigue, physical effort,
boredom, smokies, blowouts, weather, traffic yams, and polluted workplaces
should and do have a place in setting those scales, along with economic
incentives. I'll leave it to wiser heads to set the specific values and
tell us what truck drivers SHOULD make as compared to nurses. Though I
don't claim the labor market is perfect, I suspect it is more robust than
Mr. Hall indicated in his message.
Also, the labor theory of value has to be extended to include what the
economy wants in the first place. An unskilled person who ****s gold
bricks pays the system better than a skilled one who does not, and will
command higher wages. Sad but true. (Now you know my opinion of
athletes' and entertainers' salaries. And I won't even mention the
computer pros. (You expected a smiley face??))
Oded Feingold
MIT AI Lab
545 Tech Square
Cambridge, Mass. 02139
617-253-8598barry@mit-eddie.UUCP (Mikki Barry) (02/15/85)
I don't know how many nurses you know, but it surely doesn't seem as if you know their jobs very well. These days, with the very low supply of nurses, many *DO* work 70 hours+ per week. A 2 second lapse in attention can wipe out a number of people on the floors. Would you tell a nurse caring for someone you care about that its ok to not pay attention for a few seconds while he/she is checking medication? As for pain, i have known a good many nurses who have been beaten up by patients. (Contrary to popular belief, a nurse CANNOT sue or get any kind of compensation for being injured by a patient). Most of the incidents occur while giving blood tests, or while waking up patients. As for fatigue, after seeing my nurses when I was in the hospital, caring for me for 10 hours at a time, while simultaneously caring for a floor full of other people, I can tell you they were quite tired. Having driven for long stretches (10 hours per day)I can tell you I would rather be driving than having the responsiblility of life and death over 20 patients or so. You must be far more alert to check and administer medication, and decide whether the doctor should be called than to keep a vehicle in a lane. And this isn't even mentioning the second class status many nurses are given by doctors. It seems a silly thing to me to say that truck drivers are more important than nurses, just as it is silly to say that hackers are more important than sanitation workers. Training and skill should be the issue, not an attempt to decide which jobs are most important.
tron@fluke.UUCP (Peter Barbee) (02/16/85)
>> What do you usenetters think of the concept of "equal pay for comparable >> work"? As I understand it, this is to reduce the difference between >> pay scales in "male dominated" (e.g. truck drivers) vs "female dominated" >> (e.g. nurses, secretaries) occupations. There would presumably have to >> be an equivalency chart or something. >> Big controversy isn't it? I have two cents for this discussion. One cent; there is inequality everywhere, look at how much dentists and vetarinarians get paid. Second cent; I would look askance at any plan that included government. In my (admittedly non-esteemed) view a basic premise is: government involvment == negative aspects This is kind of the same argument that says although pornography is bad censorship (to stop it) would be worse. Peter B decvax-+-uw-beaver-+ ihnp4--+ allegra-+ ucbvax----lbl-csam-+--fluke!tron sun-+ ssc-vax-+ :
ashby@uiucdcsp.UUCP (02/18/85)
Labor IS just another commodity -- and its value should be set be the FREE market. Since in the US human beings are free to CHOOSE their occupation, regardless of sex, I don't see why Ed is whining. Unless, of course, he has chosen a field that is not in as a high a demand as some others, and now feels that society has cheated him. How would he have wages and salaries determined, if not be the free market?
preece@ccvaxa.UUCP (02/18/85)
> Women's wages are lower because of social institutions, not because of > supply and demand. How else do you explain the fact that a female- > dominated occupation such as nursing, for which demand exceeds supply, > is paid so much less than a male-dominated occupation such as truck- > driving, in which supply and demand are roughly equal? Especially when > you consider the relative level of skills involved... ---------- Organization and history have a lot to do with it. I don't know what the actual figures for nurses and truck drivers are, but truck drivers have been organized for a long time. They also practice in a funny market, regulated to produce unusual imbalances between supply and demand. Unions exist historically to make supply and demand work in the labor market. Many people would argue that in many areas the unions have succeeded in moving beyond a reasonable balance and left things just as unbalanced in the opposite direction. Nurses operate in a difficult sphere, since the traditional tools of unions are perceived by most people as inappropriate for use by those on whom others' lives depend. Equity is a pretty shifty concept in labor terms. You can make a pretty good case for everyone being paid the same amount, given only that each works equally hard (not equally well, not equally cleverly, just equally diligently). You can argue equally that the criterion should be what the worker achieves. Consider, by analogy, the software market. Do you price products based on their production costs or based on their value to the purchaser? Supply and demand, generally speaking, works out. If nurses said "At this salary the work is too hard." and declined jobs below a certain level, the salary levels would rise. You don't need to have strikes -- quitting en masse is a perfectly legal supply and demand tool. Organizing comes in in convincing everyone to go along. The problem is that the people holding those jobs have to be convinced that their worth exceeds their pay. I'm not sure that "comparable worth" laws are a reasonable substitute for that. scott preece ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!preece
hrs@homxb.UUCP (H.SILBIGER) (02/18/85)
I feel very strongly that women and men's pay should be equal if the job and the performance is equal. In many cases it is possible to look at a job description and find that the (female) senior clerk and the (male) assistant manager are doing the same job. Not only should the pay then be equal, but the titles should be the same as well It could also be argued that the person who empties the waste paper baskets and the person that collects the garbage on the street have jobs of comparable difficulty. There are large pay differences however. The working environment of the garbage collector may be less pleasant, but is that worth the large difference in pay? What about engineers? An computer science engineer is paid more than a chemical engineer. These jobs certainly are comparable. The difficulty in solving the unequal pay issue for women, which certainly exists as evidenced by unequal pay in even the same job classifications, is well confounded with the question of hat a job is worth at all. I would not want anyone to take this as a reason for not trying to solve the unequal pay issue, but to keep in mind that that unwillingness to work on the problem is also related to the absolute job worth issue. Herman Silbiger
renner@uiucdcs.UUCP (02/18/85)
Who would be deciding how much a job is worth? Laurie Sefton would have
us believe that industrial psychologists and industrial engineers would be
doing that. No way. There will always be disputes about how much a job
is worth. It will always be possible to find an industrial psychologist
to back your opinion of how much a job is worth. These disputes will
always be settled in court. And faced with conflicting testimony, the
judge will always pick a solution that he or she finds "fair."
Comparable worth means that wages will be set by the government, not by
the market. Economic chaos follows not far behind.
Scott Renner
{pur-ee,ihnp4}!uiucdcs!rennerhrs@homxb.UUCP (H.SILBIGER) (02/18/85)
The law of supply and demand could only work in the job marketplace if everyone could do any job. All those low paid nurses, who were advised by a previous contributor to quit their jobs to increase the demand, could then immediately start work as software engineers! This is obviously absurd. Most people in low-paying jobs have the alternative of starving. While in the long run that might cause the law of supply and demand to work, this may not be acceptable to the nurses in question. Herman Silbiger
nemo@rochester.UUCP (Wolfe) (02/19/85)
> In article <2306@randvax.UUCP> edhall@randvax.UUCP (Ed Hall) writes: > Women's wages are lower because of social institutions, not because > of supply and demand. How else do you explain the fact that a > female-dominated occupation such as nursing, ... is paid so much > less than a male-dominated occupation such as truck-driving? > There is also the effect that unionization has had on primarily "male" jobs, something that has been very difficult to spread to "female" jobs. For example, attempts to get halfway reasonable wages for J. P. Stevens clothes factory workers did not succeed until only the very recent past, largely due to the fact that most of the workers were women, who were a secondary source of income to their families. The social institutions also played a large part there, but I would be interested if anyone has heard of pink-collar strikes and their results. Nemo
zubbie@wlcrjs.UUCP (Jeanette Zobjeck) (02/19/85)
Equal pay for comparable work started out as a cop out to the issue of women's rights and the ERA. The problem is that it can't be applied equitably. Consider, I went throught college, EE Major, went to work and have established a reputation of sorts which is a part of my working identity. As a woman in a technological field I've had to contend with, and still do sometimes, a lot of condesention from men. "Humor her and she'll go away etc." How then can some one, anyone, establish what is comparable to my work and my performance for say a truckdriver or perhaps more fairly a journeyman electrician? In the city in which I live all that is required to obtain an Electrical contractors liscence is the ability to pass a test on the local electrical codes, $100.00 and Journeyman status. This is usually obtained by working for a contractor amd "learning the ropes of the trade". Which has more value? A few years working installing wiring and electrical systems or years of study, work in several areas and continuing education all just to almost stay even with the state of the art. How do you pretend to determine what is comparable. I can wire a house from blueprints so I should be considerd a Journeyman (Journeyperson) Electrician so am I overpaid as an information processing specialist or am I underpaid as an electrician? =============================================================================== From the mostly vacant environment of Jeanette L. Zobjeck (ihnp4!wlcrjs!zubbie) All opinions expressed may not even be my own. ===============================================================================
herbie@watdcsu.UUCP (Herb Chong [DCS]) (02/20/85)
In article <18200003@uiucdcsp.UUCP> ashby@uiucdcsp.UUCP writes: >Since in the US human beings >are free to CHOOSE their occupation, regardless of sex, this is not strictly true. social pressures have a great deal of influence on what type, if not exactly which job you chose, and although living in the US gives you more choice, women are still being channeled into jobs that traditionally have been, the same as men. another issue is that of comparable worth. how can you measure the diverse things that describe a thing such as a job? skills alone are not enough. until a measure of comparable worth that is equally applicable to all jobs is found and equally acceptable to all parties, you can't even begin to talk about how much to pay them. the pay scales that have been arrived at represent many years of compromise between social values, social needs, and market pressures. i will be the last to admit that they are fair, but i will say that it works. and that's a big improvement over nothing at all. i don't think that it is practical to push for equal pay of comparable worth because i don't think it is practical to arrive at a way of measuring comparable worth between different types of jobs. however, if two people are doing jobs that are nearly identical in the same place, then i think they should be paid the same, regardless of sex, race, or religion. there are too many other factors to consider outside of such a limited environment. Herb Chong... I'm user-friendly -- I don't byte, I nybble.... UUCP: {decvax|utzoo|ihnp4|allegra|clyde}!watmath!water!watdcsu!herbie CSNET: herbie%watdcsu@waterloo.csnet ARPA: herbie%watdcsu%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa NETNORTH, BITNET, EARN: herbie@watdcs, herbie@watdcsu
jeff@rtech.ARPA (Jeff Lichtman) (02/22/85)
> > In article <2306@randvax.UUCP> edhall@randvax.UUCP (Ed Hall) writes: > Women's wages are lower because of social institutions, not because > of supply and demand. How else do you explain the fact that a > female-dominated occupation such as nursing, ... is paid so much > less than a male-dominated occupation such as truck-driving? > > Without contesting the injustice of such a system, consider economic > multipliers. A nurse can make incremental improvements in a small number > of patients' lives, and under less favorable conditions may simply > maintain the status quo. But the truck-driver determines whether the > factories get their materials and keep on producing. Certainly a more > direct payoff. > > Also, nurses usually don't work for 72 hours at a stretch, nor sleep in > their rigs with pistols in hand, waiting for someone to steal the truck. > Nor does a nurse's 2-second lapse of attention wipe out a busload of > schoolchildren. > I know of a good way to determine the importance of a nurse's performance versus that of a truck driver. Just have each group do the other's jobs for one month. The bread will still get to the grocery store, but a whole lot of people will die in the hospital. 0.5 * :-) -- Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.) aka Swazoo Koolak
edhall@randvax.UUCP (Ed Hall) (02/23/85)
> > Labor IS just another commodity -- and its value should > be set be the FREE market. Since in the US human beings > are free to CHOOSE their occupation, regardless of sex, > I don't see why Ed is whining. Unless, of course, he has > chosen a field that is not in as a high a demand as some > others, and now feels that society has cheated him. How > would he have wages and salaries determined, if not be > the free market? Labor is just another commodity? Funny, I always thought that labor was what human beings did to keep themselves alive and happy. Those who make ``the free market'' such a matter of dogma seem quite happy to treat human beings as a commodity just like cattle, microchips, or iron ore. But any system that treats people this way is morally corrupt. I have news for you: a truckload of iron ore doesn't have to eat, find shelter, pay bills, or provide itself some feeling of self-worth. Certainly, we choose our occupations. In fact, you might be able to make two or three such choices in your lifetime, if you're lucky, and if you have the time and money to re-train. Of course, you'll likely find the moment for the better choices is long past, but you weren't aware of them at the time. It seems that certain of us were told that our sex made us better suited for one job over another. By the time you realize any differently, it is usually far too late. But, of course, that is irrelevant, because when it comes time to put a price- tag on your head, there are no excuses, and no easy way to make changes. Like almost anything, changes take money, but money is just what you don't have, right? How does the ``free market'' make this any more fair? It would seem that almost any way of allocating wages would be better. Why am I ``whining''? You tell me; as a UNIX systems expert of seven years experience, I know that I'm worth plenty; businesses certainly seem to be willing to pay people with my kind of expertise far more than seems fair. Why unfair? Well, when you consider that I am paid more than a top-scale teacher is, and when you consider that my long- range contribution to society may be far less than a good teacher's, how can you say it's fair? The only thing that makes me ``worth'' more is how much money a business could make as a result of my work in the next year or two, as opposed to the work of a teacher. Perhaps this has gotten pretty far afield of a net.women-type posting. But I think that anyone who wants to change the status- quo, such as feminists do, should consider just how economics often enforces the status-quo--and how human--especially women's--concerns are often ignored in favor of the oft-flawed mathematics of economics. -Ed Hall decvax!randvax!edhall
dbb@opus.UUCP (David B. Bordeau) (02/26/85)
> > Labor IS just another commodity -- and its value should > be set be the FREE market. Since in the US human beings > are free to CHOOSE their occupation, regardless of sex, > I don't see why Ed is whining. Unless, of course, he has > chosen a field that is not in as a high a demand as some > others, and now feels that society has cheated him. How > would he have wages and salaries determined, if not be > the free market? Hear, Hear!! Could this be true, someone who believes you have to go out there and make it because you're a good worker and have drive to do well in the work place not because you are an immigrant or female or handicapped or whatever your situation may be. Sure, I believe women are SOMETIMES paid less than men but they don't have to work at th Please Don't Send Any Letter Bombs, David Bordeau