The Court of Appeal has ruled that inequality between the pay of mainly female carers working for Sheffield City Council and their predominantly male colleagues doing equivalent jobs, like gardening and rubbish collection, was "tainted by sexism".Now, who in their right mind would argue that gardening and rubbish collection – heavy manual labour, mostly out in the elements – was equivalent to indoor work like wiping bottoms and dishing up meals?
Lord Justice Pill said a bonus scheme introduced in the 1960s gave the council's overwhelmingly male manual workers extra pay to boost their productivity, whilst no bonuses were paid to carers and others doing traditionally female jobs. The council now faces having to compensate women carers who have been paid up to 38 per cent less than men for decades.Maybe I’m missing something here, but if the money was paid because the men boosted their productivity accordingly, then how can the Court of Appeal assume that the women would have all done so should they have been offered a bonus..?
This was extra pay for extra work.
Not the same thing as paying them a higher base rate (not that there’d be anything wrong with that, after all, they are clearly different jobs).
The tribunal had dismissed the carers' equal pay claim on the basis that the reason for the disparity in male and female pay was that "men's work can be measured to provide a benchmark for productivity and the women's work cannot". But the Appeal Court found the women were victims of "indirect" sex discrimination.Ah, right.
Like the MacPherson Report and ‘institutional racism’, the Appeal Court started with the judgement they wanted, and proceeded from there…
5 comments:
So we are going to adjust wages back down to match the lowest paid, right?
If the positions are being filled then I'd say the wage levels are about right.
I understand that Job Evaluation often means that ALL the wages go up, though some not as much as others.
Don't mind me, but you have missed the point that the women were not allowed to join the existing bonus scheme. The Council tried to justify this on the grounds that they were part time workers. Nothing was put in its place either.
So the women were severely disadvantaged before they even began to compete and it is not good enough to say their bonuses would have been lower given the nature of the work, as some tried. There should have been the possibility of a level playing field at the outset.
"So we are going to adjust wages back down to match the lowest paid, right?"
Not if you want the grass cut and the rubbish collected, no... ;)
"If the positions are being filled then I'd say the wage levels are about right."
There is always that.
"I understand that Job Evaluation often means that ALL the wages go up, though some not as much as others."
I've been through some exercises that were done prperly, but not many. It's hard to say (and weather the storm afterwards) 'Err, actually, we're paying you for x but you're actually doing y..'.
Most people avoid it, even if they ARE being paid to manage.
"Don't mind me, but you have missed the point that the women were not allowed to join the existing bonus scheme. The Council tried to justify this on the grounds that they were part time workers."
The council should not need to be in a position of justifying anything. These are the terms and conditions. Take them or leave them.
"There should have been the possibility of a level playing field at the outset."
There was. All the carers roles werte on one pay scale, all the rubbish collection and gardeners roles were on another.
They are different. The fact that one is predominantely male and the other predominantly female is not some great scandal against womankind, but rather a reflection of what is required for each.
Though, that's what Harriet and the feminists would have you believe.
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