£300,000 discrimination against women

[Hecate]

Originally Posted by humndislocation

Another thing, is that many women leave work for quite a while when they have children. While I fully support their right to do that, you can't leave your work for an extended period, and then come back and expect your career to have made the same amount of progress that it would if you had been working the entire time.

Sorry, this report was not about women taking time out thus receiving less. It's about the pay gap for the same job

[humndislocation]

Originally Posted by freakonaleash

Sorry, this report was not about women taking time out thus receiving less. It's about the pay gap for the same job

Sorry, the article seemed a bit ambiguous to me, and could refer to either.

Also, while I'm not saying that the entirety of this pay gap can be accounted for through this, I'm not talking about the pay missed out on while mothers aren't working (although that is relevant too), I'm talking about the career advancement missed out on while not working.

What I'm saying is that if you take 3-5 years out of your working life to do something else, you can't expect to come back in 3-5 years and have advanced 3-5 years on your career ladder.

Say there are two people with say 2-3 years experience in whatever industry, earning the same wage. Person 1 continues working for another 3-4 years. Person 2 decides to go travelling for 3-4 years. Person 1 will almost certainly be earning more than Person 2 in the same job (even if they've not been promoted) 3-4 years later when Person 2 comes back to work.

[Hecate]

From the EOC:
" A pay gap can be caused by discrimination, lack of access to flexible working in better-paid jobs and occupational segregation."

"the pay gap rises dramatically – more than double– in a woman's 30's when UK women are more likely to have young children, even when they continue to work full-time, showing the extent to which the unequal impact of caring responsibilities affects their pay.

[graham enzk]

that's the point though, it's average pay discrepency.
not actual pay discrepancy.
where i work people in the same job are on different amounts of pay, this is to do with length of service not sex. however most of the workers on the top band of the pay scale in my job are women, therefore i say women earn more than men. on average. kind of. also if you extrapolate that out it's true for everything. honest.
in my last job, you got paid bonuses and commission. if men made more in that job it was because they were better at it. average that out and extrapolate wildly and that means men are better at working than women.
talking on averages in discrimination is pointless because the figures are meaningless.
it can only be looked at in specific cases.

[Hecate]

Also, discussing the length of service and associated pay rise issue:
"Contrary to media speculation, this decision puts it beyond question that employers can be challenged by women who can provide evidence that casts serious doubt that longer service does actually lead to better performance. Evidence shows that women tend to accrue shorter length of service because they've taken career breaks to look after children or are relatively new entrants into traditionally male dominated professions. So even where they are working at the same level or making the same contribution as their male colleagues, they are more likely to be clustered at the lower end of the pay scale.

Employers should therefore err on the side of caution and ensure that length of service is only used in pay where it can legitimately be justified."

So obviously in some workplaces, length of service can justify pay discrepancies but that's not always true and should not be seen as a blanket rule.

[graham enzk]

i think it's quite reasonable that if you are not long in a job that has a pay scale you will be at the bottom and someone that has been there longer will be further along the pay scale, irrispective of the sex of either.
the exception to this is if it's performance related pay like sales which is generally quite a transparent pay process, more sales, more pay.

[RiseAgainst]

didnt Dundee council get a massive bill for having to bmp their female employee's wage up a wee while ago or did i imagine that?

also reading through the EOC website (much better than AOL) and loved this little gem

The part-time pay gap has gone down to 37.6% from 38.4% in 2005. This compares women's part time earnings with men's full time earnings.

DOH!

http://www.eoc.org.uk/Default.aspx?page=19724

£20 for dinner and drinks

where at? fuckin Maccie D's!!

the website also doesnt quote WHAT jobs were being done for this "comparison"

[graham enzk]

i think you'll find the only direct pay discrepancy will be found in jobs where the individual job holder negotiates their own pay rise.
any other job will have a set salary or pay scale based on length of service, ie every year in the job move up one point on the scale.
this may indicate that women are less aggresive negotiators in these circumstances.

[Hecate]

Originally Posted by graham enzk

i think you'll find the only direct pay discrepancy will be found in jobs where the individual job holder negotiates their own pay rise.

Do you have a source for that information or is it conjecture?

Originally Posted by graham enzk

any other job will have a set salary or pay scale based on length of service, ie every year in the job move up one point on the scale.

That's one of the points of this EOC report, that employers have to be careful in going with the blanket assumption that longer service does actually equate to better performance in the job.
And on a sidenote, I found that certainly not to be the case in the social work area I worked in, it was according to their guidelines, how salary should increase, but in practice it was as far from that as I am a feminist for posting a thread about pay equality. It was not an integral part of my case against them, most of which I would not discuss on an internet forum. The clients who I was preparing the case for were all boys, before anyone starts ranting at me for being a feminist for raising that action.

Originally Posted by graham enzk

this may indicate that women are less aggresive negotiators in these circumstances.

That's possibly true when it comes to negotiating their own salaries or pay rises, an interesting theory.

[ArchFlameTera]

the hedgehog that lived in my back garden in '97 was discrimnated against.




it only got 13 maggots instead of the usual 34 after it was run over

[RiseAgainst]

Originally Posted by graham enzk

this may indicate that women are less aggresive negotiators in these circumstances.

possibly women feel intimidated during these negotiations as they are usually against men?

would be interesting to do some kind of research into that but its too early to do anything like that

[xtoohot4ux]

i def fink dat women r dscriminated aganst is prety fukkin shockin!!!!!!!!!


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