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Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watcgl!jchapman
From: jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman)
Newsgroups: net.women,can.politics
Subject: Re: opportunities, women
Message-ID: <2204@watcgl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Jul-85 10:04:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: watcgl.2204
Posted: Mon Jul 15 10:04:40 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 17-Jul-85 03:00:59 EDT
References: <893@mnetor.UUCP> <5642@utzoo.UUCP> <896@mnetor.UUCP> <5788@utzoo.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 94
Xref: watmath net.women:6397 can.politics:660

> >  ...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...
> 
> Jobs whose existence is not important to the company have a tendency
> to be abolished.  Virtually any job in a well-run company is vital to
> the company in some way.  It's hard to see how this can be made into a
> reasonably objective criterion for judging the appropriateness of wages.

 Perhaps everyone should share equally in the company profits then. (0.5 :-))
 I should have also said equality of skill, danger, etc as well however
 the point I was responding to was one that distorted the intent of
 equal pay for equal work.
> 
> > 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.
> 
> In principle, yes.  In practice, one has to live with what one can get
> (or with what one can't get rid of -- try firing a civil servant!).
> The impossibility of administering a program properly is a valid argument
> against instituting it.

 I would assume by this that you would like all government progams
 abolished since they are all administered by the civil service.
 If so then I guess we don't have much left to discuss; if not then why
 single out EPFWOEV to not be implemented?  If there really is a serious
 problem with administration in general then that should certainly be
 addressed.

 These type of "to difficult to administer - bureaucratic nightmare"
 type arguments are similar, if not identical, to the ones raised
 against "no smoking" bylaws.  Experience in that arena shows it is
 not as difficult as one might first assume.  They established an
 bureaucratic mechanism to make rulings, mediate etc.; it consisted
 of a grand total of one person one (half?) day per week.  Now I am
 a smoker and I would be willing to live under the bureaucratic
 nightmare this law has produced and abide by the rulings that are
 made (which seem to have a large degree of common sense from what
 I've heard).  Do you think EPFWOEV is any more difficult than
 dealing with us crazed nicotine addicts?
> 
> >  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...
> 
> If you believe that, then I have a bridge to sell you!  Just because you
> can put numbers on it, does not imply that the numbers mean anything.
> As witness IQ tests, where there is *some* sort of correlation between
> the numbers and intelligence, but a remarkably messy and complex one.
> What skill rating do you put on a job that requires moderate skills which
> very few people possess?  How can you possibly come up with a realistic
> number for something as subjective and variable as "intangible reward"?
> Personnel departments are staffed with zombies who think numbers equal
> people (and who can't tell a semiliterate Cobol programmer from a Unix
> wizard, either!).

 Well sorry to disappoint you but these measurements are made, and from
 what I've heard and read they produce a good measure.  If you have any
 *evidence* to the contrary why not present it.  As to your comment
 about personnel dept. employees I think it's a rather (adjective deleted)
 comment; sounds like you have more of a problem with unwarranted
 generalizations etc. than any of the people I've talked to in personnel
 depts.
>
>   
>  
> 
> I would also note that true justice in this area probably means *cutting*
> wages in some professions that are not overly "valuable" in some sense,
> but have strong unions (or other forms of clout) that force wages up.
> Are garbagemen really worth more than McDonald's counter hands?  Probably
> not, and the appropriate salary is probably closer to the McDonald's level
> than the (unionized) garbagemen level.
> -- 
> 				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
> 				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry

 You seriously think it is just as important to serve burgers as to
 keep the environment (to generalize) clean?  You sure we're living on
 the same planet?  It's really hard to take this seriously but here goes.
 Consequences of no garbage collection: disease, pests, noxious odours
 etc. .  Consequences of no McDonalds type operations: depends on what
 you want to imagine; people eat better food? people stop wasting money
 on overpriced junk?

 
 John Chapman
....!watmath!watcgl!jchapman