Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2002 11:36:11 -0500
From: Steve Smith <sgs at aginc.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: equal pay
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

ronkean at juno.com wrote:

> I don't see the U.S. as being chock full of employers scheming to pay
> women workers less than the men, but such an employer would be making a
> bad business decision, in part because it would bad for morale.  As I
> understand economics, wages in a free market tend to be set by the forces
> of supply and demand, and employers who insist on making irrational wage
> offers are working against their own economic success.

This is pure Libertarian theology, and has no particular relationship to
reality.  In the 1960s, I heard exactly the same argument against civil
rights laws.  As to "morale", it has simply never been a consideration
anywhere I've worked.  Term now is "motivation", and it basically
translates as "I want the bricks without straw by tomorrow noon, or
you're fired."

As to the "economic success" of a business, the differences in labor
costs between men and women (or blacks and whites) is in the "petty
chiseling" category.  You want to lower labor costs?  Move the whole
operation to Malaysia.

Anybody who's ever dealt with the higher levels of a real corporation
knows that it's run, not by economics, but by ego.

--
Steve Smith                                           sgs at aginc.net
Agincourt Computing                            http://www.aginc.net
"Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense."