Equal Pay

[andrewducker]

News here that companies have been told that length of service is _not_ a good enough reason to pay people more.

And, I have to say, about bloody time too.

True, longer service can lead to greater levels of experience and thus better productivity and usefulness from an employee - but it doesn't have to. If someone is being more productive/useful then they should be rewarded for that - paying them for length of service is jut a lazy way to avoid thinking about someone's actual contribution.

It also biases the system against women. It's very easy to justify paying women less when you can point out they've taken a year (or two) off to raise kids - but unless that has an actual, demonstrable affect on their levels of productivity, it's irrelevant.

Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Damn you and every other person in the EU. The US is legalizing torture and disappearing people and you lot are actually passing laws to make life better and more humane. It's not even remotely fair...

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

The change you describe discriminates against the indolent! To the barricades!

[pickwick.livejournal.com]

Huh. This could affect my work quite a lot, actually. There are people who've been here 20 years or so, and because it was such a new, technical, professional job when it started, those people are still being paid about twice as much as me, I think.

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

I own a company and person A has been there for 20 years. They're no more talented than person B who I just hired but they stuck with me through thick and thin, through the months everyone got paid weeks late, through the low times when the company wasn't doing well and everyone was taking pay cuts, they stuck with me with diligence and belief that things would get better when others walked out. Finally the company's doing better, so I hired person B who happens to know just as much about their job as person A. However, person B might well quit in a week for an extra £1000-a-year elsewhere but I'm not allowed to reward person A with higher pay (do bonuses come into this, as conceivably they should) even though I know they'll continue to stick with me due to the intense loyalty they've shown in the past?

Sure, not all situations are like this, but doesn't company loyalty count for something? If so, how would you deal with this situation?

Generally speaking, I like the idea of this law though. I just reckon it'll screw over some peopple whilst helping others.

[drplokta]

The FT seems to take a rather different view of the judgement (article will disappear behind a paywall shortly).

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

The Beeb puts the focus on experience too (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5405064.stm).

I also wonder how this sits alongside performance related pay rises. Quite large disparities can arise when an individual gets consecutive high appraisal ratings. When someone else then comes back from a maternity career break, how is it reconciled?

[wordofblake.livejournal.com]

In my old job I was the lowest paid person in the department because everyone else had been there for years. I personally felt like I was at least as competetent as the others, especially since my actual job only predated me by a year.