Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2002 17:32:46 -0500
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
From: Candy Madigan <candymadigan at mindspring.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: equal pay
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

At 11:36 AM 04/04/2002 -0500, you 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.

Amen.

Candy