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From: preece@ccvaxa.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Equal pay for comparable worth
Message-ID: <21400018@ccvaxa.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 18-Feb-85 01:03:00 EST
Article-I.D.: ccvaxa.21400018
Posted: Mon Feb 18 01:03:00 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 20-Feb-85 03:22:32 EST
References: <239@mhuxr.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:mhuxr:-23900:ccvaxa:21400018:000:2150
Nf-From: ccvaxa!preece    Feb 18 00:03:00 1985


>  Women's wages are lower because of social institutions, not because of
>  supply and demand.  How else do you explain the fact that a female-
>  dominated occupation such as nursing, for which demand exceeds supply,
>  is paid so much less than a male-dominated occupation such as truck-
>  driving, in which supply and demand are roughly equal?  Especially when
>  you consider the relative level of skills involved...
----------
Organization and history have a lot to do with it.  I don't know what
the actual figures for nurses and truck drivers are, but truck drivers
have been organized for a long time.  They also practice in a funny
market, regulated to produce unusual imbalances between supply and
demand.

Unions exist historically to make supply and demand work in the labor
market.  Many people would argue that in many areas the unions have
succeeded in moving beyond a reasonable balance and left things just
as unbalanced in the opposite direction.

Nurses operate in a difficult sphere, since the traditional tools of
unions are perceived by most people as inappropriate for use by those
on whom others' lives depend.

Equity is a pretty shifty concept in labor terms.  You can make a pretty
good case for everyone being paid the same amount, given only that each
works equally hard (not equally well, not equally cleverly, just equally
diligently).  You can argue equally that the criterion should be what
the worker achieves.  Consider, by analogy, the software market.
Do you price products based on their production costs or based on their
value to the purchaser?

Supply and demand, generally speaking, works out.  If nurses said "At this
salary the work is too hard." and declined jobs below a certain level,
the salary levels would rise.  You don't need to have strikes -- quitting
en masse is a perfectly legal supply and demand tool.  Organizing comes in
in convincing everyone to go along.  The problem is that the people holding
those jobs have to be convinced that their worth exceeds their pay.  I'm
not sure that "comparable worth" laws are a reasonable substitute for
that.

scott preece
ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!preece