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From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Orphaned Response
Message-ID: <1978@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 20-Feb-85 01:38:49 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.1978
Posted: Wed Feb 20 01:38:49 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 24-Feb-85 04:29:18 EST
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Nf-ID: #R:ttidcc:-23900:inmet:7800305:177600:3786
Nf-From: inmet!nrh    Feb 18 21:41:00 1985

>***** inmet:net.politics / ttidcc!regard / 10:38 am  Feb 16, 1985
>While "market value" is generally a good concept for pay scales, it has
>been shown that in the case of women "market value" does _not_ govern the
>wages.  In San Jose, although there is a shortage of nurses, the pay scale
>of nurses has not changed significantly in over 10 years. (It has risen, as
>in cost-of-living raises, but not in response to demand).  Other studies
>have been done to show that "market value" does not function in this
>context.

It seems perfectly reasonable to me that there's a shortage of nurses in
LA if the prices offered are low.  How long has the shortage lasted?
Do you have some reason to think that the hospitals involved will
not start paying more for nurses?

What, by the way, are the relative salaries for male and female nurses
of equal experience?

>Projected cause -- in a society that values it's women less than men, it
>ceases to matter what the actual job function/task performed is (the values
>society places on any job are arbitrary, anyhow.  That we pay business
>people [regardless of sex] more than teachers _floors_ me.).  

Here we have the classic we-need-controls argument.  Pick out something
that is surprising about the way the price system has decided things and
then claim that the result makes no sense to you.  Well, it surprises me
too, but not very much.  For one thing, the "perqs" of a college
professor are (in some ways) greater than those of most businessmen.  I
know of no businessmen with tenure, for example.  For another,
governments control the salaries of the mass of teachers.  The whole
problem with the "comparable worth" idea is that it requires third
parties to define comparable worth -- and experience shows that third
parties tend to be ill-informed and to become targets for manipulation.

>Part of the
>purpose of the equal-pay-for-equal-work issue, and the affirmative action
>program is to force a reevaluation of the roles of certain sectors (women,
>blacks, etc) of the population so that "market value" will begin to
>function.  Affirmative action practices are, in themselves, discriminatory
>in a reverse manner to historical discrimination practices.  However, the
>intent (and in some cases, the result) is to open fields/wages etc. up for
>those whom society has rigorously excluded.  Once we reach a baseline of
>equity, affirmative action and equal-pay-for-equal-work will cease to be
>issues. 

Excuse me, but how do you intend to keep people from taking advantage of
such subsidies to "take it easy"?  I remind you that there was never any
such subsidy for Jews, and yet Jews (after a lot of hard work) 
achieved economic parity with the population as a whole.

As for this achievement of "equity", I don't buy it.  What politician
is going to say: "Okay, folks, equity has been achieved, no more
affirmative action for anybody?"  How is "equity" going to be reached
when a subsidy for certain "downtrodden" groups becomes a "right"
rather than a short-term privilege (much as social security has
become a "right")?

>(Always presuming that children are raised with similar
>expectations, which, of course, they aren't.  You can't dress your daughter
>in pink and lace for her whole life, and reward only nurturing behaviour,
>then expect her to "freely" choose to become a truck driver).
>----------
>

I think it's a little rough of you to ask the taxpayers to fund agencies
to determine the "comparable worth" of all jobs, and at the same time
ask them to raise children YOUR way, otherwise this agency will continue
to do its work (and control everyone's salary) until children ARE raised
the way you want.  Perhaps you could try to convince people of this
WITHOUT suggesting that government FORCE them to do it?