Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Lagayascienza]

I think we'd probably disagree on the kind and extent of government intervention that is good for an economy. Intervention is not "in order to prevent the free market working". In is to enable the market to work well and to guide it towards better outcomes for the majority citizens. In terms of the judgement in the case under discussion, the judgement was, IMO, the right one both in terms of the legislation and it was the morally right judgement. I don't see how it would adversely distort the market for peoples' work to be valued more fairly. I think you use the case to build a straw man to put people in fear of a leftist conspiracy. However, the fact is that real wages for working people have been falling for decades, the labor force has been casualized leaving people lower incomes and without job security while more and more of a nations wealth gets sucked up to the top 1 percent while those below are increasingly squeezed. The market, left increasingly to itself, is resulting in a dystopia for the vast majority of people and untold wealth for the tiny few at the top. But the right-wing media are not interested in that. They are busy spouting leftist conspiracy theories.

[Fried Egg]

In terms of the judgement in the case under discussion, the judgement was, IMO, the right one both in terms of the legislation and it was the morally right judgement.

Yes, it appears to be a reasonable interpretation of the legislation as it is, which is why I'm arguing for it to be changed. As for being the "morally" right judgement, let me ask you this:

Do you think that Next, Asda, Birmingham city council, etc. were actually being discriminatory on the basis of sex?

I would say not as the men on the shop floor were getting the same (lower) pay as the women and the women in the warehouse were getting the same (higher) pay as the men. Which leads me to:

Do you not think that a more likely explanation for the differing rates of pay is simply responding to supply and demand? i.e. market prices that reflect that certain kinds of work are more desirable despite being a lower rate of pay?

Note, that in what I have read about these cases, the courts do not dispute this fact, only state that this is not sufficient justification for the outcomes which appear to have a disproportionately negative effect on women! They start with the observation of a statistical disparity and then accuse the employers of being discriminatory for not doing enough to rectify the disparity. To me, this is absurd!

I don't see how it would adversely distort the market for peoples' work to be valued more fairly.

How can it not? If they are forced to pay more than the market rate for shop floor staff, won't those positions be over-subscribed? Why would someone currently working in the warehouse not seek to move the the more pleasant working environment of the shop floor if they would get the same money (and lead to warehouse jobs being under-subscribed)?

This is a common thing we see in markets when the state imposes price floors or ceilings - it usually leads to gluts and shortages (with certain possible exceptions; i.e. when monopoly prices are in effect).

Note, if it is really possible for the courts (or any other independent observers) to determine how much every job is worth, why should the markets be left to determine the price for anything? Wouldn't it all be much better if the rates of pay for all jobs were determined by a panel of experts so that everyone was paid fairly?

The answer is no, of course not! it leads to terrible outcomes when you don't have an economy that is (largely) organised according to market prices (i.e. supply and demand).

I think you use the case to build a straw man to put people in fear of a leftist conspiracy. However, the fact is that real wages for working people have been falling for decades, the labor force has been casualized leaving people lower incomes and without job security while more and more of a nations wealth gets sucked up to the top 1 percent while those below are increasingly squeezed. The market, left increasingly to itself, is resulting in a dystopia for the vast majority of people and untold wealth for the tiny few at the top. But the right-wing media are not interested in that. They are busy spouting leftist conspiracy theories.

I wasn't making any claims about a "leftist" conspiracy but I do see the irony of you accusing me of doing so while making your own claims about right wing conspiracies.

No, I'm not saying it's a conspiracy, just that our society (and some of it's laws) of gotten out of hand. Well intentioned they may have been (trying to eliminate discrimination against women in the work place), but it has gone to far and is now leading to absurd and damaging outcomes for society.

[Good_Egg]

... it was the morally right judgement.

Well no. There is no moral obligation to pay the same wage for different jobs, and somebody else reaching the conclusion that they value those jobs equally (within their scale of values) doesn't change that.

I don't see how it would adversely distort the market

It's a distortion, more or less by definition.

Will it have significant adverse effects ?

In one sense probably not. Compelling employers to link the wages of two different jobs may well result medium-term, in both being paid the average of the market wage of the two. So customers will get a better apology from higher-quality shop staff that more goods are out of stock because the warehouse are struggling to fill vacancies and thus short-staffed. And competing forms will be in the same boat.

It won't be a better world, but it's probably not a huge deal.

But the other impact is that start-ups - new businesses - will face both more regulations and less-predictable regulations. Who can predict what different jobs the courts might next find to be of "equal value" ? Maybe every new business needs more legal advice ?

All that's been achieved is more work for lawyers (is that why you're in favour ?) but the downside for society is higher barriers to market entry for new firms and therefore reduced competition.

However, the fact is that real wages for working people have been falling for decades, the labor force has been casualized leaving people lower incomes and without job security.

That's a valid issue, but a different issue (for another thread), not directly related. Are you in fact explaining that the reason you're in favour of this equal-pay-for-different-jobs measure is because it purports to favour the working class who you have sympathy with because they're having a hard time for all these other reasons? Is that your argument ?

[Fried Egg]

Will it have significant adverse effects ?

In one sense probably not. Compelling employers to link the wages of two different jobs may well result medium-term, in both being paid the average of the market wage of the two. So customers will get a better apology from higher-quality shop staff that more goods are out of stock because the warehouse are struggling to fill vacancies and thus short-staffed. And competing forms will be in the same boat.

It won't be a better world, but it's probably not a huge deal.

There's another way employers might try to address this legislation. They might introduce discrimination (in favour of men on the shop floor and in favour of women in the warehouse) to equalize the distribution of genders. That way, the statistical disparity disappears without having the change the wage levels.

Oh, the irony! Legislation designer to reduce sexual discrimination actually ends up increasing it!

[Fried Egg]

So, I just read about the situation in Birmingham with the striking bin workers with refuse piling up in the streets.

The council leader John Cotton was on the news explaining why bin workers had their pay scales downgraded and that this was a direct result of the equal pay claim that was settled last year. Bin workers, primarily men, cannot be paid more than teaching assistants and carers (primarily women) as that's discriminatory. John Cotton said that this was "part of our efforts to ensure that we close down that historic injustice once and for all".

One can't help but feel sorry for the council caught in this bind. They are recovering from bankruptcy and the legacy of being forced to equalise pay across different departments. And I fully expect that, even if they manage to persuade the bin workers to stop striking and accept their lower pay, that they will struggle to retain the staff that are expected to do a "job, undertaken whether it's snowing or baking hot, is difficult, demanding, dirty and often hazardous".

[Lagayascienza]

They should have raised the pay rates of all low paid workers whether they are teaching assistants or garbage collectors. The work they do is essential and undervalued. And the real wages of working people have been falling for decades as wealth has been increasingly sucked upwards to monopolistic billionaires at the top.

[Fried Egg]

They should have raised the pay rates of all low paid workers whether they are teaching assistants or garbage collectors.

In case it wasn't clear, the council had been bankrupted, largely as a result of trying to settle this equal pay case. They're trying to balance the budgets and presumably don't have the money.

And one has to wonder whether even if they could have afforded to just raise the rates of pay for everyone, whether that would have actually avoided the strikes. The binmen clearly feel that the unpleasant and often harsh conditions of their job deserved the higher compensation that they have traditionally received.

Ultimately, you're going to cause problems if the relative rates of pay don't reflect the differences in supply and demand for different roles.

The work they do is essential and undervalued.

But that does not mean they should all be valued the same.

It might well be that they should all be paid more. That doesn't change the fact that the reasons they are doing so here are bogus.

[Lagayascienza]

Why should all essential work not be be similarly valued? If the garbos had not suffered a pay decrease there would have been no strike.

In a capitalist system, workers have only one thing to sell - their labor. Workers need to recognize anew their right to withhold their labor and the power doing so gives them. What is needed is a revitalized trades union movement and a government that will reign in monopolies and tax multinational corporations fairly and stop the decades long squeeze on working people that has seen their real wages fall and more and more of the country's wealth being sucked up to the few at the top.

This decades long squeeze on the real wages of working people will end in revolution if it is not reversed. Hopefully, the first to get the chop will be the free market racketeers and their lackies in government who have brought about this impasse. If democracies are to remain strong in the face of challenges from hard-right and hard-left dictatorships, then they need to look after the masses. History, if it can teach us anything, teaches us this.

[Fried Egg]

Why should all essential work not be be similarly valued?

Because it is not all of equal value.

You might describe to jobs different jobs to be "essential" (although surely there are degrees of essentiality?) but if one of them involves less pleasant working conditions (or is less desirable for any other reason), why shouldn't they be priced differently? That's how we ensure all the undesirable or harder jobs get filled, we offer rates of pay needed to compensate. That seems fair to me. You notion of enforcing equal outcomes where we have no reason to expect them doesn't.

[Fried Egg]

If the garbos had not suffered a pay decrease there would have been no strike.

They didn't have the money to pay everyone more. They could only level downwards.

But even if they had the money, there is no reason to suppose that would have avoided the strikes. Most strikes don't result out of having a pay cut, but from the feeling that they deserve more pay than they have. If all the departments around them are getting pay increase but they're not, they would likely feel aggreived.

And even if they hadn't gone on strike, you're then left with a situation in which which workers would have naturally drifted away towards those jobs that paid the same money but had more pleasant working conditions. You would see the gluts and shortages in the labour markets that always result when the government imposes price levels that deviate from supply and demand.

In a capitalist system, workers have only one thing to sell - their labor.

In a socialist system, they have nothing to sell; they are the property of the state.

However, it is irrelevant in any case as the problem we are seeing here is simply the result of the government imposing an unfair outcome of valuing two different jobs as equal when they're not. The price of labour surely needs to take account of more than whether a job is "essential" or not. Like how hard the work is, how unpleasant the working conditions, how skilled or experienced the workers need to be, and many other things besides.

[Sy Borg]

They should have raised the pay rates of all low paid workers whether they are teaching assistants or garbage collectors. The work they do is essential and undervalued. And the real wages of working people have been falling for decades as wealth has been increasingly sucked upwards to monopolistic billionaires at the top.

A bit quick to volunteer the way other people use their money. It's easy to say someone else needs to spend X dollars on Y issue, not so easy to stump up your own money.