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From: jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman)
Newsgroups: can.politics,net.women
Subject: Re: opportunities, women
Message-ID: <2177@watcgl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 11-Jul-85 09:44:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: watcgl.2177
Posted: Thu Jul 11 09:44:33 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 12-Jul-85 01:03:41 EDT
References: <893@mnetor.UUCP> <5642@utzoo.UUCP> <896@mnetor.UUCP>, <2158@watcgl.UUCP> <5771@utzoo.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
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Xref: watmath can.politics:626 net.women:6331

> >  What exactly is cosmetic about equal pay for work of equal value?
> >  I would certainly insist on being paid what my work is worth,
> >  wouldn't you?
> 
> Do you really expect to convince a bureaucrat from the Ministry of
> Economic Justice that you are more competent than a female ethnic
> handicapped Francophone with similar *formal* qualifications... even
> if you are?
> 
> Competence is much harder to assess than skin color or shape.  Who
> can blame a bored civil servant for taking the easy way out?
> -- 
> 				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
> 				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry

 I think that that analysis is somewhat misleading.  It is more likely
 that an equivalence would be established between certain categories
 of jobs with the intent that if you were doing a job that was just
 as important to the existence of a company as someone doing a different
 job in the company then the wage *brackets* of those two jobs would
 be the same.  Pay within the brackets for an individual would then
 be assessed in the usual (arbitrary :-)) way.

 If the bored civil servant is not doing their job (taking easy way
 out) then that is the problem to be rectified not discarding the
 program they are supposedly administering.

 Another comment not directed specifically at you Henry.  It seems
 to me that whenever EPWOEV is mentioned there are all these examples
 generated as to how unfair it would be and what an administrative
 nightmare it would become. I'd like to say the following:
 
 1. these types of job assessment skills are not difficult or unique.
    Reasonable formulas have been developed for measuring the levels
    of skill, difficulty, danger, intangible reward etc of jobs and
    these can be applied in an unbiased way.  Personnel depts. are
    staffed with people who are capable of applying these formulas
    if they were directed to do so.  So the amount of government
    bureacracy would not be any greater than that required for
    enforcing any other regulation/law etc.
 
 2. As far as I can see no political party really *wants* to have
    to implement this legislation (except perhaps the NDP who
    won't, realistically, form too many governments in the near
    future).  The private sector howls and screams every time EPFWOEV
    is mentioned but if they were to treat their employees with
    some measure of justice it is extremely unlikely that EPFWOEV
    would become a legal force (although I think it probably should
    be in any case).  If on the other hand they continue to maintain
    a blatantly unfair system then they shouldn't be surprised to
    find someone making them clean up their act.

 3. EPFWOEV detractors continually mention how expensive this would
    all be; as I've said in 1. above this isn't necessarily so but
    let's assume it might be anyhow for the sake of argument.  We
    are talking about a *huge* segment of society, primarily women
    and (very) secondarily men of various social/ethnic categories
    who are plain and simple being treated unfairly.  Now if justice
    is expensive then that may be a problem but it is not the problem
    of EPFWOEV.  I think denying some subset of the participants
    in this society justice in some (any) particular arena based on
    economic arguments is a crock.  When the group under consideration
    is constitutes the majority of society the denial is even less
    credible.

 John Chapman
...!watmath!watcgl!jchapman