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From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: can.politics,net.women
Subject: Re: opportunities, women
Message-ID: <5788@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 12-Jul-85 17:01:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5788
Posted: Fri Jul 12 17:01:17 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 12-Jul-85 17:01:17 EDT
References: <893@mnetor.UUCP> <5642@utzoo.UUCP> <896@mnetor.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 68

>  ...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.

> 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.

>  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!).
 
>    ...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...

On the whole, I agree with this.  But I note that proposed EPFWOEV laws
don't seem to contain exemptions for the companies that *do* treat their
people decently.  (If you seriously think that such companies would not
be hassled by an EPFWOEV regime, I have another bridge to sell you!)

>     ...  I think denying some subset of the participants
>     in this society justice in some (any) particular arena based on
>     economic arguments is a crock.

It is possible that this society is not rich enough to afford complete
justice.  I don't believe it, but the idea is not silly, just false.
Justice does have a cost, and the available resources are finite.  I
think they are sufficient for this particular objective, mind you,
although I don't agree that EPFWOEV legislation	is a good implementation
technique.

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