Gobsmacked by Grauniad article on equal pay

[Pruni]

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Yup, you can compare jobs of equal value for sex discrimination cases (and presumably other forms of discrimination, such as disability, and age when that comes in). More shocking point is the way Unison apparently tried to downplay this (although they can be very odd).

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That was very moving.

how interesting. hope they dont use it as an excuse to pay engineers less...

Didn't this issue arise years ago when some women working in a car factory (their job was working on the upholsery of the seats) found out that they were being paid less than the men who were doing a job of equal skill? Something to do with 'work of equal worth' or something? They won their case , as I rememebr

Could the male nurses get improved pay as a result of this type of action?

After the Pete Doherty debarcle, the Grauniad has redeemed itself with this article. Agree, very moving.

Yes, I'm confused by that as well - if they pay male and female nurses the same for the same job, surely this isn't sex discrimination but more a question of one 'industry' paying more for jobs than another? I could earn more in the private sector than in the public sector but that's not sexual discrimination.

The guardian has done itself proud today!

Yeah it confuses me. I work in the Civil Service and out Dept had a crazy pay system which meant that one person could be 6 years or more in the grade and doing the exact same job as a colleague who had say 15 years in the job but the longer serving member had a higher pay cos he had reached the grade maximum. They kept moving the max and mimimum each year so those of us nearer the bottom of the scale always stayed there.

Another Gov Dept had a similar cray system went to tribunal and won. it was ruled that 6 years was adequate time to be paid the rate for the job (i.e max). Our union would not take a case for us.

Also most Gov Dept have different rates of pay and there would be many many staff doing almost identical jobs. I just don't understand how it can be sex descrimination when there are men and women doing the same job getting paid the same. Is it something to do with women being in a majority in these jobs and therefore indirectly discriminated against?

Any legally minded people out there?

brilliant article.

I will be telling my husband about it - nothing to do with sexual discrimination at such, but he's just qualified as a pest control officer with our local council. He earns approx £10,000 less than equivalent graded pest control officers doing the same job in neighbouring London boroughs.

Nursing, cleaning etc is all 'pink-coller' work -traditionally woman dominated. The report found that people in these jobs are much lower paid than people in male dominated jobs that have similar levels of responsibilty, qualification and skill.

True, although surely equally a white-collar job may pay more than a blue collar job of equal responsibility? This doesn't really seem like a cut-and-dried case of sex discrimination, although I accept that in the main traditional 'women's work' has been undervalued and given a lower status than traditional 'men's work'.

White collar jobs tend to need higher qualifications though. Blue collar jobs tend to be training based. So although the level of responsibility is the same, the white collar worker may have a degree where the blue collar worker will have NVQ 4 or 5, level 2 or so will have been gained since the age of 17/18 and accumalated on the job. If you see what I am getting at.

Teaching assistants are supposed to be the same pay scale as the people that fix the roads.

I do see that, but surely that means society places a higher [monetary] value on academic qualifications than on vocational ones - it's potentially discriminatory but how on earth would you legislate for it? Short of having a nationwide "Agenda for Change" so that the salary for every single job in the country was regulated by the government ... hello USSR!

So do you think the men doing the same jobs as the 1600 women who won this case benifit in any way? I must be slow today.

Is equal pay for equal work based on gender or not?

it doesn't mean that, tribpot - people with academic degrees do not in general get paid more than people with degree level vocational quals. in fact the vocational quals usually pay more, even if they are below degree level.

I'm amazed they were able to compare whole different employment sectors and call them "equivalent" though. in general it's good, but I wonder if, for example, the extra bonuses that teachers of shortage subjects get will be declared illegal?

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Brilliant article, I agree they should do more like this (they still put Nicole Richie on the cover though!).

Of course a man could bring a case like this to a tribunal - but the fact is, it is usually women who are paid less than men.

I found Unison's downplaying of the incident for fear of triggering a wholesale privatisation of the public sector interesting too.

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I doubt any deals needed to be done - the unions saw what happened if they got too vocal in the 70s and 80s didn't they?!

btw, I find the toleration of unequal pay for fear of stirring up trouble absolutely wrong

Sexual descrimination can apply if it is a predominantly female role although some men may also be doing it. This is why part-time workers won pension rights etc. It was thought that as the majority of part-time workers were female they should have the same rights as full-time workers as this was sexual descrimination. Even though there may be some men working part-time too.

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a European directive which means that means that e.g. nurses' wages can be compared to those of people doing a job with a similar level

Sort of garbage you get out the the EU, ever wondered why France & Germany have far higher unemployment rates, yet marginally worse disparity in pay ?

Nurses are indeed trained to much the same level as an engineer. But then again so is a male NCO in the army who typically earns far less.

Engineers in government employent are very badly paid, and would bet money that the average nurse earns more than the average government employed engineer.

Girls still study subjects that are in less demand than boys, though this is eroding. Not because girls are getting better advice but because boys are wimping out more.

We've had precisely one female get through our basic screen, which is a shame because we recruit obscenely overpaid city types, she was Kiwi, and all the girls who could produce adequate CVs were uniformly foreign.

British girls are apparently fed the line that there's a big demand for language skills.
Pick up the newspaper of your choice, do you see that there ? My wife was told by her teachers to choose biology over physics A level because "it's more caring". Yes, really.