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From: suki@reed.UUCP (Monica Nosek)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Equal pay for comparable worth
Message-ID: <935@reed.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-Feb-85 13:45:01 EST
Article-I.D.: reed.935
Posted: Wed Feb 13 13:45:01 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 16-Feb-85 04:43:46 EST
References: <239@mhuxr.UUCP> <135@rtech.ARPA>
Reply-To: suki@reed.UUCP (Monica Nosek)
Organization: Reed College, Portland, Oregon
Lines: 35

In article <135@rtech.ARPA> jeff@rtech.ARPA (Jeff Lichtman) writes:
>
>In cases where there are no comparable jobs within the organization (what is
>comparable to nursing?), the approach is to try to show that the organization
>pays more to employees with less skill and training.  For example, if the state
>of California paid more to truck drivers than it did to nurses, one could claim
>discrimination because nursing requires more training and carries more
>responsibilities.
>
>-- 
>Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.)
>aka Swazoo Koolak

One of the major problems I see, however, is assigning value
to certain jobs.  Granted, nursing is very important, and I
know nurses work hard (my mom has been a nurse since before I
was born--I've seen how much time and skill needs to be put
in), but some truck drivers also perform important jobs.  For
instance, sanitation workers?  The man or woman who collects
my garbage probably hasn't been required to complete the
equivalent of nursing school, but anyone who has seen what
happens to New York when the sanitation workers strike knows
that they are important workers.  
 	*PLEASE* don't get me wrong and think that I'm
equating garbage collectors and nurses; I'm just pointing out
that education and skill aren't the only measures of job
worth.  As I've said before, I would ideally like to see
"comparable pay" unnecessary, because I'd like to see "women's
work" and "men's work" become history.  Until we achieve that,
though, it looks as though comparable worth will be a
second-rate alternative.
-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------
			Monica Nosek
			reed!suki