Equal Work, Unequal Pay

Whine, Whine, Whine.....

At her age, perhaps Ms Ledbetter will understand some of this, even if she would never admit it.

Now in my upper sixties, I've been listening and adjusting to this same incessant one-sided whine for well over a half century now. That I still have to listen and adjust to it when my society is providing college educations to nearly twice as many women as men just adds insult to insufferable injury. One-sided fantasy worlds? Just because no one is allowed to mention them does NOT mean thare are not other factors involved here.

I won't repeat the valid arguments offered here by others, but I have yet to hear a single American women suggest that her group finally start paying their fair share of Social Security and Medicare premiums and stop enjoying the huge one-third subsidy they still get from male workers. After all, it was women who went to court in the early 1970s to get a break on commercial insurance premiums by establishing in law expected group pay-outs as the critical criteria for establishing premium rates.

In 1933 men could expect to live to age 58 and women to age 61, so the new Social Security retirement age was set at 65. That was at a time when most women raised at least the societal minimum of two healthy children in the home. Today, over 55% and steadily rising, of American women between 18 and 48 have never been married and never had children, and those who do have their one designer child have passed off much of the responsibility for raising that child on to the state, yet they ALL still enjoy all the benefits their grandmothers fully earned, by themselves. And still their one-note whining is the same today as it was a half century ago. Running on mindless auto-pilot with dogma designed for an entirely different, and long-gone, time...

The AVERAGE American white college graduate woman today can expect to earn an incredible $1,000,000 more than the boy who drops out of high school, and still they blame the boys for failing their women-dominated schools, by the tens of millions. The AVERAGE white American women today, always the most favored group on the planet thanks largely to responsible American men, can expect to live an incredible twenty years after retiring on Social Security and Medicare, on someone else's dime, and most haven't had the minimum 2.2 children needed just to replace them and their husband, not to mention producing the every larger work force needed to keep up with all those constantly ballooning entitlement bills.

Are slacker whining American women EVER going to just grow up and shut up? Are they ever going to become adult enough to accept that Real Life is tough and take up the cause of some deserving group other than their own? It is NOT all about THEM! Or must I take that incessant grating whine with me to the grave? It's certain that Ms Ledbetter will outlive me, so I guess I must.

Commentators lack reading ability

She was not paid 20% percent less than the other employees. She was paid 40% less than the highest paid employee in an equal position, and 20% less than the lowest paid employee (other than herself, of course) in an equal position.

So if the highest paid employee (in the same position) was making $70,000 - she would be at $42,000. That's a gap that boggles the mind.

Need information to effectively negotiate

Dan and Dan,

You can't negotiate effectively if you don't have all the facts. She was expressly forbidden from talking about salary. So it seems logical that she can't even know what she could reasonably ask for.

I agree with the idea that you should negotiate salaries and that means those salaries might be somewhat different. Also, salary can be affected by a myriad of things many that others here have listed. But when you don't have proper information to negotiate from and that information is purposefully kept from you by the other side, it seems to me to be a pretty clear case of discriminatory practice.

JONATHON

Look at the facts

The two Dans are engaging in the same 'assuming without proof' that they are complaining about - positing that Mrs. Ledbetter's lower salary came from lack of negotiation skills or because she lived in a lower cost area (!?) instead of a culture of discrimination at the Goodyear plant. Fortunately, we have the Supreme Court opinion to show us that the underlying cause was indeed discrimination. See Justice Ginsberg's dissent for testimony of two other female workers who experienced discrimination (one of whom was paid less than the men she supervised) and the blatantly discriminatory comments made to Mrs. Ledbetter by her own supervisor; "the plant did not need women, that [women] didn't help it, [and] caused problems."

Also, there is no indication in this artcle or elsewhere that Mrs. Ledbetter was 'happy' with her pay or position before she received her note (the existence of which also points to discriminatory practices at the plant that at least one other person - the note writer - noticed, otherwise why write the note at all?). In fact there is indication otherwise from her testimony in her court cases. Of course, this is beside the point that Mrs. Ledbetter couldn't have been legitimately happy or unhappy about her situation until she was informed about its true nature - namely that she was being paid less then everyone else in her position.

I challenge anyone - male or female - to say they would just brush it off if they found that they made at least 15% less than all of the other people in the same position - especially if they had worked at the company as long or longer than their colleagues.

Stop the knee jerk reactions and look at the facts of this case.

Negotiate?

It is unbelievable to me to still hear in 2008, a male boss state "Well, he's got a family to feed..." as justification for unequal pay, as though we are still in some fantasy world with loads of middle class families with a house, two cars, and only one bread winner.

Negotiating for a better salary does nothing for the job applicant in the face of a discriminatory hiring manager or owner.

Exactly...

Dan Detroit is exactly right...

Women need to be willing to step up and negotiate their salary like men do - it's not fun, but it is better then having the government involved.

She was happy with her salary until she found out it was not as much as other people made - we don't even know if there were other factors - she said she lives 150 miles from Birmingham - maybe her area was rural and the cost of living was lower - my company takes this into account for our pay. Maybe her rural area was not as profitable as other areas?

We'll never know - we are just taking on faith that this is "discrimination" and not just belly aching.

15% is not that much either - every company in America probably has 2 people in similar positions one of whom makes 15% more then the other for perfectly legitimate reasons including the higher paid one asking for the top of the salary range and the lower paid one asking for the lower end...

Whoever gave her that note did her a disservice she was 70 and happy, now she is 70 and unhappy yet nothing really changed - just the way she looked at it. She wouldn't have stayed for 19+ years if she was unhappy or the pay was not enough for her.

Equal Work, Unequal Pay

It appears that Ms.Ledbetter accepted the position, and was satisfied with the compensation until her "vctimization" was pointed out. Lower compensation than the others could equally be the result of poor negotiating skills when accepting the job, less education, experience, capability, willingness to work extra hours or less output. At least one of these typical reasons females appear to have lower compensation is logically apparent in the genesis of her perspective on her employer. In a free economy, women have no less responsibility than men to compete for higher compensation. Given the backdrop of high corporate interest in supporting affirmative action, it is more likely today that females actually receive more opportunity for advancement and higher compensation than males doing similar jobs.