Female voters want the legal “right to know” what their male colleagues are paid, a survey by the Fawcett Society has found.
The charity found that over seven in ten (71 per cent) of female voters in Red Wall Constituencies reported that they would be more likely to vote for a party that introduced a legally enforceable policy allowing women to find out the pay of men in their workplace, enabling them to challenge pay discrepancies.
Have they considered the implication of this? That everyone else will also know what The Ladies are paid?
Yes, I know, it’s a fairly obvious point. But it does seem to strike certain feminist campaigners as a surprise. When domestic violence laws were changed to find out that some one third (I think?) of cases were birds beating on blokes and so on. There are these second order effects as a result of the law – rightly – being gender blind. So if a bloke has to do it then so does that bird…..
*gets the popcorn ready*
Privacy? That’s *SO* last century. All walls must be replaced with glass. Envelopes and curtains must be outlawed. All conversations must be broadcast in public. What to know more? Press the red button! And don’t forget to report yourself to your local monitoring officer.
Yep, and I’d like a right to know how often you stick around for an hour because we’re not quite done, or how many times you answer the phone out of hours. I think I’ve only met 2 or3 female engineers who actually did the job. They were very good. Most though end up in nice 9 to 5 (possibly 3.30 to pick up the kids) office jobs. I definitely want a right to see their salary too.
So what responsibilities go with this right?
Oh, sorry…….can’t believe I just said that!
Still hung over from the toilet duck!
Wouldn’t wonder if they were blatant enough to draught the law so it can only work the “right” way round.
There’s certainly high demand and lower supply for women in male dominated fields. And even though it shouldn’t happen, i’d be surprised if that didn’t result in some women getting higher pay than blokes similar qualification, experience and ability.
Privacy? That’s *SO* last century. All walls must be replaced with glass. Envelopes and curtains must be outlawed. All conversations must be broadcast in public. What to know more? Press the red button! And don’t forget to report yourself to your local monitoring officer.
And if you’ve got nothing to hide you’ve got nothing to fear.
“And if you’ve got nothing to hide you’ve got nothing to fear.”
And anything you say will and can be used against you in a court of public opinion. There’s a reason we Brits are reticent about our private lives.
What Hallowed Be said.
Except I think he/she meant draft rather than draught.
*Pendant Alert!*
I once took a new job and found that one of my colleagues seemed to have an irrational dislike of my presence. Eventually he spat it out: I had been recruited on a higher spot on the pay scale than he had been at my age.
You could respond that he wasn’t a very manly male and you would be right. But it does show one risk with public knowledge about pay.
Later another colleague resigned because he was turned down for a merit pay award when he knew I already had one. He was a grown up: his beef wasn’t with me but with the decision-maker. (He was right about the decision too: it was absurd. I wondered if the decision-maker was rather jealous of the younger man’s ability.)
It vindicated my prediction about merit pay in universities: the amount awarded would be too small to be life-changing for the winners but quite big enough to piss off the losers.
Oh, another thing about merit pay and the like. I eventually inferred that I had an advantage in the competition for merit pay. Some of my colleagues had erroneously got the idea that I was wealthy and therefore could afford to stamp out immediately if sufficiently annoyed.
In fact one of my colleagues did come into a big inheritance and he resigned soon after. Not because of any nonsense about pay but just because he’d got fed up with the creeping managerialism/bureaucracy that increasingly blighted our lives. He could now afford not to stay in a job he no longer enjoyed. A pity – he was a clever, hard-working, agreeable colleague.
Ltw,
“Yep, and I’d like a right to know how often you stick around for an hour because we’re not quite done, or how many times you answer the phone out of hours. I think I’ve only met 2 or3 female engineers who actually did the job. They were very good. Most though end up in nice 9 to 5 (possibly 3.30 to pick up the kids) office jobs. I definitely want a right to see their salary too.”
The thing is that all hours are not equal at that point. The potential losses when the server crashes at 5pm are huge. That’s all night without a service, and into the next day as you fix it. 2 hours work on that is worth a hell of a lot more than 2 hours of Sandra adding a new content type. Your work just saved the company £200K. And if you are irregularly saving the company £200K, you’re worth a lot more than Sandra. The guys who are on the on-call rota (and they’re always guys) are never going to be made redundant.
“Except I think he/she meant draft rather than draught.”
Touché. Start the year as I mean to go on.
Every Finn’s tax returns are public record. So far Suomi hasn’t fallen apart. Every army member’s pay grade is known. OK so the army is just holding together. Every union member’s pay rate is known. Perhaps I’d better quit while I’m ahead…