colourwheel Posted January 31, 2014 Author Share Posted January 31, 2014 This issue is not about compensation for their services either.... Even if two "people" are hired doing the exact same job with equivalent performance and education history there is no reason why one should be paid more than the other... You could come up with as many excuses as you wish, but like I have stressed before you could come up with just as many counter excuses in opposition... The reality is there is no reason why we should keep to a culture that has repressed women being paid less in the work place over their male counter parts. A way to help with this is to pass legislation to insure that this type of discrimination won't perpetuate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vagrant0 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Even if two "people" are hired doing the exact same job with equivalent performance and education history there is no reason why one should be paid more than the other...I'd love to see an instance where this was actually a recorded thing. Even looking at starting salaries, how much a person is paid initially can depend on exactly when they were hired, how much demand was needed, how much that person had to bargain with for a higher salary, past experience, number and quality or recommendations, and countless other subjective figures. An employee who was hired during an expansion phase for example would not have started at the same level of pay as an employee who was being hired to fill a sudden vacancy because both the demand and budget are different. Similarly, if an employer believes an applicant to be a good choice, but the applicant might end up considering other offers just because that employer offered them the bare minimum, naturally that employer will offer a higher starting salary in order to be the better offer and to have a better chance at retaining that employee. What you consider bias is what others could call necessary for their business to have a competitive edge. Then there are instances in the current market where you have people who are intentionally taking jobs for less pay because they need the work, but who are with employers who want to keep them, so may give them larger pay increases in order to keep them happy where they are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colourwheel Posted January 31, 2014 Author Share Posted January 31, 2014 (edited) Even if two "people" are hired doing the exact same job with equivalent performance and education history there is no reason why one should be paid more than the other... I'd love to see an instance where this was actually a recorded thing. Even looking at starting salaries, how much a person is paid initially can depend on exactly when they were hired, how much demand was needed, how much that person had to bargain with for a higher salary, past experience, number and quality or recommendations, and countless other subjective figures. I am a living example when I got my 1st job out of a college program over a decade ago. I was being paid almost $1,500 less a year than a friend of mine who is male. We both graduated the same class and year at the same college and I had a higher grade point average than him. Neither of us had anymore job experience in the field than the other, in fact my male friend had no job experience at all before this job other than working at a pizza restaurant when he was in high school and I was working as a waitress before while i was still going to college.... I didn't find out about the difference in our pay till a few years later and this was after I had found new employment... I don't like to bring up personal work situations so much because a lot of time there are far deeper issues of sexism within the work place where I have had to deal with where I had to sue when employees have touched me in inappropriate ways... part of the settlement led to me signing a disclosures to not publically persecute the actual company or the people involved... Although my example is not a recorded incident I am sure there are far more stories like this than you even realize.... Back then I was young and very naive and recently realize how wrong this type of blatant discrimination is in the work place and realize this can change if we want it to change.... Edited January 31, 2014 by colourwheel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DONKENFAP Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 I don't think government is the answer to this though I don't think they help. I think the issue needs to be changed on a cultural level. Teachers and students need to be given equal chance and equal encouragement and they do not at times. Women need to be SEEN in these occupations that are well paying and traditionally not seen as jobs women are in. The environment of the place of employment needs to change. Traditional business still operate in the past in many ways. Ideas of work schedules and men taking time off and the "old boy's club" that is still a part of our business culture. There is nothing wrong with either parent staying home with children. It is the attention and love they get that counts. I don't think even if the government would pass some of these things it would truly change things. A change in attitude like this needs to start in the home, in the schools at the most base levels. I will give an example. I see commercials and ads for the toy LEGOS all the time. It is always boys playing with them...always, always, always....but when I was growing up we had this and this is how it needs to change:http://resources.news.com.au/files/2011/12/23/1226229/323829-lego-ad-1.jpg Maybe a bit off-topic but one of our political parties tried to address that with gender quotas. They introduced it in 1996 and you can see a pretty steady increase of women since then: http://www.aph.gov.au/~/media/05%20About%20Parliament/54%20Parliamentary%20Depts/544%20Parliamentary%20Library/BackgroundNotes/2011-12/WomenInParliament-1.ashx Granted, the quota could have been inconsequential and the rise already on its way. The graph only goes to 2011 however, since then we have dropped pretty significantly compared to the rest of the world for women in parliament http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm we used to be rank 20, now rank 44. Still, it is interesting that between our two parties, the one without the gender quotas only has one woman in cabinet now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lisnpuppy Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 I just don't think federal legislation can fix this. maybe not even State. Now I am fairly liberal and have many cases where I have wanted government intervention. Based on how the anti-discrimination stuff went I just don't think it is the answer. Should there be recourse for people that think they have been discriminated against based on their receipt of lower salary when all other things are equal. yes. Will that require some kind of law-yes but I think we have those already. And based on what I have seen I kinda have to agree with TRoaches (*le gasp*-lol) when a million reasons can be made for why someone gets a different salary. All salaries are in ranges anyway. Human Resources typical does background checks and in many jobs employees are required to be bonded. This alone could be an "excuse" for a lower salary. I mean employees are not supposed to discriminate hiring based on gender, religion, age, disability...yet they do every day. There have been laws on the books for this for dog's years and it has not helped. How many times have "token" employees been hired to keep the government off their back. This isn't change any more than political correct speech has made people less prejudiced. The change MUST come from the bottom not the top. It has not worked before. The Federal Government has a trust and faith issue with the people in the U.S. right now. Trying to enforce something like that would do little to change peoples minds and that is the issue. Maybe a few women would luck out (or men for that matter-for Vagrant there) and enjoy this but I can't imagine how they would be treated once hired. Then firing them is pretty easy as most states are "at will" and people can be fired for any reason. To win any battle like this in court you have to have some pretty strong and convincing evidence. Most people don't which is why you don't hear more about these type suits. @Vagrant--yes there are people taking any job right now. But as you can see from my links this has been going on for years and years and years. You can explain alot of why there is a difference away but not all of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRoaches Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 I am a living example when I got my 1st job out of a college program over a decade ago. I was being paid almost $1,500 less a year than a friend of mine who is male. I assume that your pay was negotiated during your hiring, so why did you accept this job if you were unsatisfied with the pay? If someone makes you an offer and you accept the offer there is not much you can really complain about. If you purchase an item at a store then see the same item being sold cheaper somewhere else it does not mean that the first store did something ethically wrong by selling it to you at a higher price. They did not force you to buy the item. Likewise, the company that you worked for did not force you to accept their compensation offer, and you could have made a counter-offer if you thought the number was low. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colourwheel Posted January 31, 2014 Author Share Posted January 31, 2014 (edited) Has anyone here even taken the time to read the Paycheck Fairness Act? To my understanding regardless how much one negotiates, one person can't be paid any less than another person who is equally qualified. If a person is hired at one pay at the entry level then an employer can't hire someone under that pay of the same precedence of hiring at that level who is equally qualified. Don't understand why anyone would be against this... This would stop disproportional starting pay for people doing the same job level regardless of being male or female who are equally qualified... I am sure in some instances there are even males who are being hired at lower wages than females. These accounts might be minimal but this legislation would help correct and deal with this issue..... If you think about it one reason why there is such disparity in wages between men and women is because women are initially paid less than men to begin with.... it's hard for a woman to negotiate to be paid any more than a man when they came from a job being paid almost $5,000 less a year than a man when looking for a new job .... two people coming from equivalent experiences where as a woman was making only $50,000 a year as a man making $55,000 a year makes one wonder why an employer wouldn't take advantage of the situation and hire a woman for less despite negotiations ..... lets help to stop this vicious cycle.... Edited January 31, 2014 by colourwheel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRoaches Posted February 1, 2014 Share Posted February 1, 2014 To my understanding regardless how much one negotiates, one person can't be paid any less than another person who is equally qualified. If a person is hired at one pay at the entry level then an employer can't hire someone under that pay of the same precedence of hiring at that level who is equally qualified. The whole thing rests on the "equally qualified" part, which is the subjective assessment of the employer. Any claim that anyone would ever make that they are being paid less than someone who is "equally qualified" can easily be demolished by scrutinizing their qualifications, including their intangible and subjective aspects like the person's personality. Pretend that I am an employer, and you are representing a former employee who is accusing me of underpaying them because of their gender. My reply to your accusation is "No, I pay her less because I don't like her personally." Can you disprove my statement? Of course not, because it is only my opinion and therefore is not subject to proof. Where does that leave you, with regards to your claim of pay inequity? What would your next step be? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeyYou Posted February 1, 2014 Share Posted February 1, 2014 (edited) Has anyone here even taken the time to read the Paycheck Fairness Act? To my understanding regardless how much one negotiates, one person can't be paid any less than another person who is equally qualified. If a person is hired at one pay at the entry level then an employer can't hire someone under that pay of the same precedence of hiring at that level who is equally qualified. Don't understand why anyone would be against this... This would stop disproportional starting pay for people doing the same job level regardless of being male or female who are equally qualified... I am sure in some instances there are even males who are being hired at lower wages than females. These accounts might be minimal but this legislation would help correct and deal with this issue..... If you think about it one reason why there is such disparity in wages between men and women is because women are initially paid less than men to begin with.... it's hard for a woman to negotiate to be paid any more than a man when they came from a job being paid almost $5,000 less a year than a man when looking for a new job .... two people coming from equivalent experiences where as a woman was making only $50,000 a year as a man making $55,000 a year makes one wonder why an employer wouldn't take advantage of the situation and hire a woman for less despite negotiations ..... lets help to stop this vicious cycle....Because it isn't about just qualifications. Two people can have exactly the same stuff on their resumes, but, one of them can still be 'better' at what they do. Be it because of personality, upbringing, or a whole host of other issues. Arbitrarily legislating that two people doing the same job, MUST be paid the same, regardless of performance, qualifications, etc, is a non-starter. Besides, any such legislation would have to be so ambiguously written, that it would be unenforceable in any event. Also, if you think this is a recent issue, think again. Pay inequality, even among folks of the SAME gender, has been going on forever. Why do you think most large corporations don't want you discussing your salary with your co-workers? A few places I have worked, they would flat out fire you for even bringing up the topic. Reason being..... the pay scales, even in the same job description, were so disparate, as to defy belief. One of the major reasons I left one of my positions was because I was the manager, yet, much to my surprise, a couple folks that worked FOR me, made more than I did, (by a good margin.) and they were fresh off the street. Edited February 1, 2014 by HeyYou Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colourwheel Posted February 1, 2014 Author Share Posted February 1, 2014 (edited) To my understanding regardless how much one negotiates, one person can't be paid any less than another person who is equally qualified. If a person is hired at one pay at the entry level then an employer can't hire someone under that pay of the same precedence of hiring at that level who is equally qualified. The whole thing rests on the "equally qualified" part, which is the subjective assessment of the employer. Any claim that anyone would ever make that they are being paid less than someone who is "equally qualified" can easily be demolished by scrutinizing their qualifications, including their intangible and subjective aspects like the person's personality. Pretend that I am an employer, and you are representing a former employee who is accusing me of underpaying them because of their gender. My reply to your accusation is "No, I pay her less because I don't like her personally." Can you disprove my statement? Of course not, because it is only my opinion and therefore is not subject to proof. Where does that leave you, with regards to your claim of pay inequity? What would your next step be? If you are hiring anyone for a job you wouldn't hire anyone who wasn't qualified. This is the point I was trying to stress. Where someone is more qualified than another is completely irrelevant... No one hires someone and thinks, "Omg this person is much more qualified than the last person i hired. I am going to pay ythem 5% more than this other person." when negotiating on salary it boils down to what one was last paid and nothing to do with how much more qualified than someone else is.... Believe me I have had to negotiate many times when being hired in the past. Edited February 1, 2014 by colourwheel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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