Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2002 16:52:28 -0500
From: Ted White <tedwhite at compusnet.com>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: equal pay
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

Steve Smith wrote:

> 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.

You've put your finger square on it.   In the last ten years I've worked for
two companies which were screwed by the egos of their corporate officers.

--Ted White