Paycheck Fairness Act: Why I Support It

Four points

- Yet another piece of legislation where there are already protections? If there is disparate pay, it is my understanding that under the Equal Pay Act you would still have to justify the difference in pay. Is that incorrect? It is my impression this is only about raising the caps.

- Companies are already paying a bigger price for poorly laid out compensation plans whether they are racist, sexist or just stupid as hell. I mean, if a company thinks they are getting great security guards by paying them minimum wage and giving them zero benefits, they end up paying for that compensation plan in other ways. Same thing with other positions in the company.

- Government regulation has made, at least a certain part of HR, code enforcement officers and forces HR departments to go beyond good faith efforts to ensure that they are not liable. That sucks.

- The only tool Congress has is to pass laws. I understand that. But I think we should examine that there might be better ways to come to the same result. New laws = new court cases = more case precedents to follow = more crying from my eyes burning out being so bored with following case precedent.

We’ll deal with it. Just like we deal with the changes every year. Every new law just makes me tired though. I don’t think I am alone either.

Lance,

1. I totally want more legislation to balance out all the deregulation that happened in the airline, banking, and utility industries. Somewhere, in the tension & chaos, there will be order.

2. I agree that what goes around/comes around with compensation, unless you are KBR and you harass your employees and go into binding arbitration because you know some people in the Bush Administration and you are beyond the long arm of the law.

*

Dan,

Agreed on mandatory training for women & girls. (Does it really say mandatory? I missed that.) I think teaching everyone negotiation skills is important, though, and the biggest negotiation skill I like to have is a stick of federal legislation in my back pocket that says I can sue you if you discriminate against me & I find out.

I totally agree it’s heavy handed, though. I’ve lost my faith in the free market after the past 8 years, the war, the contractors in Iraq, the failed energy industries, the mortgage crisis, etc.

@Dan OMG, like, that was a good idea at the time.

Affirmative Action has been incredibly successful as well and that requires government reporting of applicants, hires, promotions and terms.

Oh wait, substitute “not at all effective” for “incredibly successful.” There, much better.

Also, the whole war and last eight years thing makes you think the government should have *more* regs and control? I don’t follow.

Laurie:
No one has mentioned that we have a piece of legislation that takes care of mandating that people pay the same, it is called the Equal Pay Act, which says equal pay for equal work.

As to the inequity in between men and women, with women earning $.77 for every $1 much of that can be explained by issues such as career interruption.

Market forces explain more. If you work in a field that is valued less by the market, regardless of how noble the field is, you will get paid less. I do not make as much as many other men, regardless of my similar sex, because I work in HR, a field that is not as valued as is sales, finance, marketing, etc. In fact because I work for a small company I make less than many women in HR that work for large companies, despite the fact that I have 25+ years of experience, a Masters and an SPHR. It was my choice to do so.

When the argument of comparable worth first came up, long before you were in HR, it used the example of male firefighters and female nurses, the latter paid the smaller amount. What ended up happening was that fewer women became nurses and tried to become firefighters. As fewer women went into nursing the supply went down while the demand stayed the same. People started to have to pay more to nurses to get people interested in being nurses and wages went up, in some cases exceeding what firefighters were paid. Pay inequity solved.

Just because you think you should be paid more, or your job should be more valuable, or is more valuable to society does not mean it is going to be. And it should not be mandated to be so. The market does adjust. Society determines what is valuable. Government screws it up. Society says teachers should be more valuable, hence get paid more, however, governments set the value of a teacher and pay accordingly. Not a good model. Do you really want the government to say what an HR job is worth. I sure don’t.

Frannyo—All sorts of things I could say, but there are many things that make me valuable to my employer other than the ability to not have my brain explode when reading government regulation and attempting to prophesize the effects. I look very good in khaki’s and have a charming smile for instance.

I would only applied your reasoning to company executives. Have them discuss why they get a bonus and a settlement that is eight figures.

As for the other employees, the problem is each market is very different. This should work for states, but it shouldn’t be a federal law. I really think the states should use this approach and find out why these numbers show up and their reasonings. The federal government would look at the average and would determine if they meet or not meet expectations and that would be tough to determine because each company has a different case.

@Kimx2 Thanks for the excellent comments on this post. UR great and your input is welcome *any* time.

Michael,

I am a female and an HR professional, and I completely agree with your arguments. Let’s say there were substantial studies done that actually looked at the whole package… Kim listed: “gender, race, national origin, years of related experience AND salary.” You mentioned industry, and I would add job titles and level (entry level etc).

After all that was said and done, I really do believe that this .77 per dollar would be much much less. Would it be exactly even? Well, I think it would vary by industry. In fact, there may be some industries where the numbers fall to slightly favor females, but men might show a slight edge over females in other industries… and I am still okay with this.

If there were truly a large disparity based on gender alone, then I might feel differently, but I don’t think there is. This legislation is going overboard to overcorrect a problem that is not need of much correction at all.

The idea of the class action lawsuits… doesn’t that show what this legislation is really about? We talk about “big bad corporations” all day long… what about the big bad law firms and greedy lawyers looking for class action lawsuits based on frivolous claims to line their own pockets?