Most members of Congress realized the glaring unfairness of expecting employees to know and formally complain about wage discrimination within 180 days of their employers’ decision to discriminate against them, the upshot of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear. But the majority support in the Senate last week was insufficient to put the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to a vote, with senators including Kansas Republicans Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts, to their discredit, among those standing against the bill. Similarly, when the law passed the House last summer, it did so without the votes of Kansans Todd Tiahrt, Jerry Moran and Nancy Boyda.
Opponents, mostly Republicans, say the bill would invite lawsuits - a phony argument, as columnist Clarence Page explains on the Opinion pages today. In fact, because salary comparisons are impossible for most American workers to obtain, what the failure to pass the bill invites is more wage discrimination.
51 Comments
As I stated in an earlier post, Republicans are bought and paid for by business. If it inhibits business in any way, they will vote it down. Lemmings in spades. If Republicans would step out of the corporate, collective box, they would probably become Democrats.
Way to go, cons, keep them workers down, fat, and pregnant.
P.S. . . . but don’t give them kids health insurance.
Where does this end? Six years after employment? Maybe sixty years? How much time does an employee need to break the rules and discuss his/her pay with other employees?
If you don’t think you are being paid enough for your services, then put in a formal request for a pay raise. If you don’t get it - move along.
They didn’t value your services.
Not enough info.
AGAIN
Republicans are the party of business with their foot firmly on the throat of the workers.
AGAIN,
Democrats are the party of communism with their greedy hands firmly planted in the pockets of those making the money.
It is company policy of my former employer, to discuss your pay or ask others about their rate of pay is a termination offense. In fact it is often expressed that as a condition of a raise you can not tell other about the raise. Or you risk losing your raise if not termination!
American Way I agree, I wrote a story called “The wages of a Horse” it was about a young man whom inherited the best draft horse in the county. Having no use for the horse he decided to rent it out and accepted the offer from the first farmer he offered the horse to. At the end of the first year he returned and the farmer’s terms were worst then the first year’s.
The moral of the story was “If the offer is not better the second time around, you should have went down the road the first time!”.
It is idiotic to expect a worker to know they are receiving different pay from others in a timely manner.
Often it is by accident and not intent that many find out they are being under paid compared to their co-workers doing the same job.
25 years ago, I worked at a restaurant and got paid $3.35/hr.
I think someone else there was making $3.75/hr. Don’t know for sure, just what the other employee told me.
Maybe I should sue.
“American_Way” blithers –
“Democrats are the party of communism…”
” Don’t know for sure, just what the other employee told me.”
Max are you a minority? Or a female?
You are probably good to go with a lawsuit.
” Don’t know for sure, just what the other employee told me.”
Max, what if:
The other employee had more longevity than you? Sometimes employees get more MONEY based upon total employment time.
The other employee was getting overtime pay so the hourly wage was misunderstood by you.
Are two employees every REALLY equal? Are we trying to compare apples to oranges?
There are so many variables - the only thing you really know for sure is one is a male and the other female. And even that is not certain these days.
“In fact, because salary comparisons are impossible for most American workers to obtain”
Doesn’t this make the need for the law moot?
“Doesn’t this make the need for the law moot?”
I think they are implying such comparisons CAN be made, but the evil employers make it impossible for
employees.
Me thinks it’s extremely difficult comparison, if not impossible for employers to make. And costly.
Everytime business decided to give a wage increase, they have to do a complicated bean count.
Like counting race to comply with employment laws, but not counting race because that is illegal.
I’m a guy AmWay, and the other employee was female.
She made more then I did, and we were hired in the same month to do the same job. She was prettier then me.
Didn’t matter, after 6 months I left for a better opportunity. Didn’t like the position I had, so I decided to shop around, market my skills, and found a better opportunity.
Didn’t need anyone holding my hand to find a better job. I didn’t complain, I just moved on.
Who would I complain to? It was my responsibility to market myself to obtain a salary that was acceptable to me.
Did I care if someone made more or less then me? Nope. None of my business. Not the jealous hateful type.
“But Republicans were unified against it enough to muster 42 votes to supporters’ 56 votes. The bill passed the House in July, 225-199.”
The fact that the Republican minority could block this show the lie to the calim that Democrats “CONTROL” the Congress.
An employer should be able to pay an employee what the value of the employee is worth to the organization without wage jealousies complicating things, ever among people with the same or similar job descriptions.
Say an organization hires two people to dig ditches. One is capable of using a shovel, the other a large earth moving machine. Both put in the same amount of time on the job. The one using the shovel probably works much harder at his job than the large equipment operator but gets paid considerable less. Both have the same job description, ‘Dirt Mover’.
Is that not fair? Of course…the equipment operator is much more valuable to the organization.
Inequities based on sex or race type factors are not fair, but if based on productivity or value factors they certainly are.
Here’s where it heats up regarding sex differences. If one employee remains on the job consistently benefiting the employer and organization, and another take periodic leaves for whatever reason denying the employer the benefit of employing them, does not the employer have the right to move the constant employee up the wage scale faster? I think yes.
Working in the U.S. is a voluntary enterprise. Hence it is nearly impossible to be guilty of so-called wage discrimination. If someone voluntarily agrees to work at a certain price then you can’t discriminate against them because they made a chioce. If they don’t like that wage they can leave at anytime.
Further, if you don’t take time to learn what your skills are worth, like Ms. Ledbetter, then what you are getting paid is not important to you. So then how could you be discriminated against?
“employer have the right to move the constant employee up the wage scale faster?”
Apparently an employer has no rights, except those given by the state. An employer should have the right to hire, promote, or fire their employees based upon whatever standard THEY deem appropriate. They should be able to hire and pay based upon whether the employee gets along and is likeable.
It could be because the employee is butt ugly.
Okay.
Let’s say your neighbor has figured a way to tap your home’s electricity after it leaves the meter.
He’s got an extension cord buried under the ground and you’re paying for all this electricity.
A couple of years after that happens, you dig a garden and discover his theft. You establish he’s been doing this for a couple of years. Does he owe you for all those years of stealing from you? Or if you didn’t discover his crime after 180 days, you’re SOL.
If there are verifiable reasons why two people doing the same job are worthy of different pay levels, it should be easy to prove.
But if the only difference between two employees is race or gender or age… well, that’s pretty much the definition of discrimination, isn’t it?
If they want to limit the time to 6 mo., then pass a law that wage questions to another employee, or employer are protected questions for which an employee can’t be disciplined.
Quit trying to game the system you stinkin’ repubs.
Employers might better be called exploiters and already have FAR tooheavy a hand in the worker/employer equation.
“It could be because the employee is butt ugly.”
Then how have you ever been able to hold a job, AmWay?
Boxlock: If it is a smaller dig, manual labor is more cost effective by reason of the capital investment, depreciation and borrowing costs to buy the Cat. earthmover (flagrant advertising there). Only at a certain point does equipment prove of worth. I can lay-off the worker but not the financial implications of the earthmover, if things get slow. I think one must include the economies of scale when making a statement similar to your post. As to different pay for different folks doing the same job….. it’s wrong. That is why wegot unions in the first place. Piece work is a wage depresser as witnessed by the folks in Honduras, Mexico or in the immigrant tenements of America at the turn of the 20th century which, alas, is repeating itself now. Unions drove up our standard of living, whereas ubercapitalists drive it down…..ie cheap labor in underdeveloped parts of the world. How is it the other G7 countries have a minimum wage around $9.00 + hr., include health care and more holidays but are very, very competitive?
American_Way,
I agree with you, the employer should have the right to offer wages at whatever level they decide, and employees have the right to work there or not for those wages. Including refusing to join a union by the way.
The ‘touchy’ part comes to sex differences, where the female may become pregnant for instance, leaving the job for a time, placing hardship on the organization by the absence. Or take more time off for child care responsibilities which though fully necessary none the less hurts the organization by the absence. Same applies to fathers also. As an employee or employer I would resent having to pick up the work of an absent co-worker or employee because they are off taking care of personal responsibilities, or to pay the less reliable employee the same. Yet some many today feel the organization should not make compensation decisions based on those factors.
I do think some ‘compassion’ in those factors and decisions goes along way in improving morale and worker productivity, but should not be mandated.
“Okay.
Let’s say your neighbor has figured a way to tap your home’s electricity after it leaves the meter.
He’s got an extension cord buried under the ground and you’re paying for all this electricity.”
That is a pretty unrelated analogy. One, the pay scale, reflects your negotiating skills. The other reflects direct theft.
“already have FAR [too heavy] a hand in the worker/employer equation.”
Are you freakin kidding me? It is THEIR business. It is THEIR decision who to hire, fire, and what pay rate they will receive. You have gone totally socialist.
So the freaking OWNER of a business should have no say in the compensation of his/her employees? You do live in America right? The land of the FREE ?
sursum,
The decision between shovel operator and large equip. operator (Cat. if that makes you happier) most appropriate for the purpose of the job should remain entirely with the employer. The man operating the Cat. can for example replace say 200+ shovel operators, and be much more in demand in the work force, for which the employer must pay much more. Pay should be left to the one paying for the benefit brought to the organization and the decision to work left to the worker. If the employer needs more shovel operators he can very well raise the wage offered to attract more and vice versa.
By the way, the benefits brought to the organization are not just productivity in numbers, etc., but can be for any criteria the employer feels benefits the organization, like personalities or whatever.
In other words it’s entirely up to the employer what pay and benefits to offer individuals, NOT GROUPS, and up to the employee whether to accept or not.
Aren’t free counties great!
And of course the white male neocons come to the defense of the Republicans again…why not just come out and say you’re pro- discrimination? You know it’s the truth.
We’re not talking simply about one employee working better and earning more than another. We’re talking systematic abuse of females and minorities, and that has been PROVEN time and again with wage disparity studies.
What surprised me is that Nancy Boyda voted against it and I expect an explaination. Makes me want to call her a few choice words.
And its also why I won’t be defending her against the neocons anytime soon among other reasons.
Discrimination? Nah. It is about an employer being able to run his/her business. Some folks call that freedom. I like freedom. Why don’t you?
If you receive a fair wage, then why bitch? If you don’t receive a fair wage, demand it or find another job. Why do you base your pay needs on what someone else gets? Sounds kinda socialistic to me.
“SolDevVB” alleges –
“…the pay scale reflects your negotiating skills. The other reflects direct theft.”
Yeah. And I’m gonna walk into that skyscraper in Chicago and talk to Mr. Boeing to negotiate my salary? Get real.
The only power I have as a negotiator is if I stand with my fellow employees and there’s a structured pay scale.
Employers can (and do) provide such a plan, even in non-union shops. But it was the union that made those salary ranges possible.
Mr. Boeing could hire winos off the street for a jug of Thunderbird per shift to be machinists or designers and cut the wage budget by billions. Of course, a lot more airliners would crash… but them’s the breaks.
I’ve been in meetings when we were replacing a job that had paid $50,000 and the candidate was willing to come to work (for a number of reasons: our health care coverage, it was a step-up in her career, etc.) and she’d take the job for $30,000. But when her predecessor was hired with the same skill-set, he was paid $36,000.
Yeah, the guy who left had earned pay increases. But only because he performed. But he was hired as someone who was worth $36,000 to the firm. If she is qualified to replace him, she should be paid (at the very least) the minimum we paid the guy who was hired years ago with the same qualifications, even if she’s willing to take less.
That’s just the right thing to do.
So much of business has been reduced to “what can we get away with?”
“We can paint the toys with lead in China and sell them for a couple of years and get off with a trivial fine!”
Or, as with the Pinto case –
“We can pay off people who were burned in a Pinto for less than we’d pay to fix the design failure.”
And here’s the thing:
Every business I’ve been involved with has had a business plan that considers just how much an employee is worth to the company.
If it’s worth $350 a week to me to have somebody as a, say, bookkeeper, I’m asking for trouble if I hire someone who will do it for $250 a week. Those are the people who are prime candidates to be embezzlers. If I pay someone who does the job I want them to they’ve earned what I’ve budgeted for the position.
If a company can’t prosper unless it cheats its workers, that company has no reason to exist.
““already have FAR [too heavy] a hand in the worker/employer equation.”
Are you freakin kidding me? It is THEIR business. It is THEIR decision who to hire, fire, and what pay rate they will receive. You have gone totally socialist. ”
No I am not kidding you. We have fewer and fewer employers. They collude with one another to depress wages and benefits.
It does not affect you. Yet.
Software right?
LOTSA folks in India learning to do that. They’ll work way cheaper than you. And you will have no one to blame but yourself and your “go it alone” attitude.
Ah yes, the warped mind of the Liberal. Using a liability case of the Ford Pinto flame thrower and comparing it to establishing wages.
Do liberals normally have this much problem analyzing problems or is it in their natures to look as stupid as possible?
“Yeah. And I’m gonna walk into that skyscraper in Chicago and talk to Mr. Boeing to negotiate my salary? Get real.”
If he is your first line supervisor, why not? Otherwise you are just throwing out silly rhetoric, again.
“The only power I have as a negotiator is if I stand with my fellow employees and there’s a structured pay scale.”
Sounds like a false assumption. Do you not have annual reviews and discuss your pay?
“and she’d take the job for $30,000. But when her predecessor was hired with the same skill-set, he was paid $36,000. “
Why didn’t she ask for 36K then? Her fault…
“even if she’s willing to take less.”
Now that is just dumb.
“If a company can’t prosper unless it cheats its workers, that company has no reason to exist.”
If a worker is willing to be cheated, the worker will be cheated.
I saw stuff like that too Monkeyhawk.
My mom was a contract analyst. She did the work for years. She was one of the best at it.
Then one day, the company decides a contract analyst has to have a college degree. SO mom gets busted back to Secretary.
And told she will continue to do contract analyst work!
Mom told them she wouldn’t do it. They told her she would do it if she wanted to keep her job.
And so, on pain of termination, she was forced for more than 10 years to do a job she was not paid for. Until she could retire. On which occasion she told them to stick the retirement party AND the clock up their ass.
“LOTSA folks in India learning to do that. They’ll work way cheaper than you. And you will have no one to blame but yourself and your “go it alone” attitude.”
They sure are. And LOTSA companies feeling the sting of going that route. There will always be development work in America. The job I am in now requires an American citizen.
And I will have only myself to blame as my business becomes more and more successful.
Ahhhh.. glowing in the prosperity, warmth and security of eight years of Republican rule and economic wisdom…
Throw those bums out!
Boxlock: I think we’re on the same page except for one thing. The value of the work should be set by the one doing it, not the end user. End users of the health professions for instance don’t set rates, an association monitored by insurance industry does. Non-professinals only have unions to gather strength with which to bargain for a living wage. BTW, I had day to day dealing with unions, never being a union memeber. I even had them take a 8% reduction back in the 80’s when things were tough, but they were highly skilled people, however my outlook still holds. When I compare (as best I can) western Europe or other democratic and advanced, free market countries I just wonder what the hell we’re doing these days. I hope federal/state/city contracts still contain a living wage and benefits clause protecting the workers rather than just ROI or cost overruns. I seem to recall that men were off/sick more than women. Seems better life styles had women show up every day on a more regular basis and seldom, if ever, hung over. And I recognize hung over! This is an international trend as well, and I think perhaps that dwelling on pregnancies is a bit micro in a generally macro topic.
I am one of the best at what I do, I’ve been told so not only by clients but by my bosses.
I have no ability to negotiate my pay. I have done so in the past at other jobs. Sometimes it doesn’t make a hill of beans at how good you are.
We truly need to get back to working your way to the top instead of having these barely out of college degreed kids running everything based on education alone. Some of these people spent their whole college years guzzling beer bongs on mommy and daddy’s cushy college fund instead of working and learning hands on. Experience counts for a lot. And I’m sick of not being able to get a decent job simply because I don’t have a piece of 50,000 paper that certifies my brainpower.
JR’s mother is a good example. Hire those who can do the job, who are willing to work hard and REWARD THEM. Don’t do it based on what you can sap them out of, do the right thing as an employer.
Because if you don’t, you’ll have a whole lot of people like me, like JR, who are fed up and are going to demand it a different way.
Welcome to reaping what you sow, Sol. Remember those who used to get rich off the backs of slaves and child labor?
JR I can certainly sympathize with your mom. I was in that exact position. The company I had been with for 10 years, the last four as Finance Director over a staff of six got a new CEO - 33 and new to our industry. He decided my position needed a degreed professional. At the age of 57 I went back to school and did just that. The college I started when 27 was finally a degree at 59 and as my youngest said it was for the best reason, ’so I could say I did it.
That is why I stressed to Pmom about furthering her education now while still young is easier that waiting until you’re old.
I don’t need all of the zingers about being a rich white woman. Just saying when life hand you lemons make lemonade. Nobody owes us anything but we can make our life what we want it to be.
ksgrm
My mother had had no college at all.
She was in her early 50’s. Really not practical for her to start college at that age.
And besides they MADE her do the job anyway. They just didn’t pay her what they paid someone with a degree. Economically it likely would have been a wash to get a piece of paper that said she was smart enough to do what she was doing.
sursum, when you say;
“The value of the work should be set by the one doing it, not the end user. End users of the health professions for instance don’t set rates, an association monitored by insurance industry does.”
That’s not exactly true. The health care provider does set their own rates and bills those rates. The insurance industry or Medicare accepts those rates or not and the provider then accepts that or not. Many times it’s contractual, agreed on before care is given. Not unlike an employer setting a wage and the worker electing to take it or not, or a worker asking for a given wage, and a negotiation process then ensuing.
How can the the value of the work be set by the one doing it unless the employer can refuse to hire the worker? I may well decide I’m quite valuable sitting on my patooty, much to the disagreement of my employer.
Boxlock: For over 100 years a natural contract existed between labor and capital, building a wonderous thing. By sending jobs to poverty stricken areas overseas, capitalists stopped holding up their end of the contract. All of our current problems arise from voiding that natural contract. Recently the UAW signed an agreement accepting lower wages for new employees thus going back to their roots of apprentices rising to journeymen as a base for income. Therein was the how the value of the work(er) was decided, by the masters/union not the owner. After 25 years of madness the union movement seems to have found it’s raison d’etre again. Lets hope.
sursum,
I can’t really say I would disagree with what you’ve said, except to explore ‘which came first the chicken or the egg’. Did the ‘capitalists’ stop holding up their end, or did the workers ask for too much. Not arguing, just questioning. I imagine some of both.
It would be wondrous thing thing if there was a natural and harmonious contract between them, and there is sometimes, just not nearly enough.
Maybe if everyone remains honest and respectful it can happen more often. Hum…big if.
Not ‘thing thing’, just ‘thing’, above.
“And so, on pain of termination, she was forced for more than 10 years to do a job she was not paid for. Until she could retire. On which occasion she told them to stick the retirement party AND the clock up their ass.” JR
Mom was FORCED to stay in that job? Did they chain her to it?
Now I see where JR gets his insubordinate attitude. You’ll go far with that chip on your shoulder JR.
“Mom was FORCED to stay in that job? Did they chain her to it?”
Why no “Max”. Unless you mean by “chained” that she would be giving up a job she had worked at for several years, her insurance, etc.
Incidentally? The same company denied her 9 years of pension funding.
Now you can blame old, patriarchal attitudes like yours for that.
Or you could blame me. My mom was fired from the same company in 1965 because she was pregnant with me. The nine years she had in before that are not counted in her pension.
She was an office worker. Non union. They only got a…trickle down of the union won benefits from the loving caring company.
Patriarchal attitudes? Hardly.
No other place to work for her?
I’ve found people have 3 basic choices if they don’t like their jobs.
1)Live with it and btich constantly.
2)Try to change conditions where you work, possibly moving your way up.
3)Leave for something else. There’s a whole wide world of opportunities out there. Sometimes you need to move to get something better.
“1)Live with it and btich constantly.
2)Try to change conditions where you work,
Sounds like the same thing?
Repeal the “right to work” laws and let it work.
JR, you can change the world, but not the workplace?
“Repeal the “right to work” laws and let it work.”
Any place I’ve ever worked I’ve been ‘on the same side’, working for the same goals, as my employer. Maybe that’s why I’ve done alright.
Repeal of the ‘right to work’ laws would put organizations in a more confrontational employee - employer situation with a damn union orchestrating it. I don’t need no damn union speaking for me.
I suppose there are some unions that are beneficial, I just haven’t seen any lately.
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