Once an activist always an activist.
Marilyn took it upon herself to form her own select committee and she and a bunch of other MPs and interested parties opened their doors for submissions on pay equity and the changes the Government made that they didn’t like.
When doors like that get opened, people of like minds tend to wander through, and they sit around all agreeing with each other about how bad things are.
The ensuing report, which has just been released, tells you exactly what you would think it would.
The problem with pay equity is it's an unsolvable problem, unless you take on a North Korea/Cuba type view of the world and simply get the Government to make all the rules.
The simple truth of it is different jobs have different values.
Another truth is some women choose work that doesn’t pay as much as other work. Men do as well, but not as much.
Some of the work that doesn't pay as much is predominantly done by women.
The most famous case involved a woman called Kristine Bartlett and the aged care sector. Rightly or wrongly jobs of compassion and care tend to be done by females. I would argue that’s largely because they tend to be nicer people overall but that would probably lead to a charge of me being sexist, which I'm not.
What I am is a realist and you can see the issue. Should age care workers be paid more? Probably.
But if they were, who would foot the bill? The people paying the age care bills of course.
Could we artificially boost their pay? Well, that is where we got into dreadful trouble. They ended up comparing age care workers with mechanics and got a massive pay rise.
Trouble is it was always false. Mechanics are not age care workers any more than air stewards are. You can look for commonalities, twist logic all you want, but you either artificially mess with it, or you let the market be the market.
Most jobs have a rationale as to why they pay what they do and at all times, all jobs are open to all people, depending on desire and skill.
So essentially Marilyn and her mates have wasted their time.
Logic wins. The market wins. If you want more money, do a job that pays more of it, male or female.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
The ensuing report, which has just been released, tells you exactly what you would think it would.
The problem with pay equity is it's an unsolvable problem, unless you take on a North Korea/Cuba type view of the world and simply get the Government to make all the rules.
The simple truth of it is different jobs have different values.
Another truth is some women choose work that doesn’t pay as much as other work. Men do as well, but not as much.
Some of the work that doesn't pay as much is predominantly done by women.
The most famous case involved a woman called Kristine Bartlett and the aged care sector. Rightly or wrongly jobs of compassion and care tend to be done by females. I would argue that’s largely because they tend to be nicer people overall but that would probably lead to a charge of me being sexist, which I'm not.
What I am is a realist and you can see the issue. Should age care workers be paid more? Probably.
But if they were, who would foot the bill? The people paying the age care bills of course.
Could we artificially boost their pay? Well, that is where we got into dreadful trouble. They ended up comparing age care workers with mechanics and got a massive pay rise.
Trouble is it was always false. Mechanics are not age care workers any more than air stewards are. You can look for commonalities, twist logic all you want, but you either artificially mess with it, or you let the market be the market.
Most jobs have a rationale as to why they pay what they do and at all times, all jobs are open to all people, depending on desire and skill.
So essentially Marilyn and her mates have wasted their time.
Logic wins. The market wins. If you want more money, do a job that pays more of it, male or female.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
10 comments:
Pay equity a non starter and loads of examples of inequity not related to gender. Somebody at a university may work twice as many hours as a colleague and earn two-thirds the pay. Another way to measure: somebody may earn four times more $ for their employer, say, a university, but be paid the same. Waring would want admin staff, mostly women, to be paid the same as a teacher actually generating revenue. Waring also would want somebody with a three-year NZ PhD to be paid the same as somebody with a six-year Canadian PhD. Wait! That's already the case.
Thankyou Mike - common sense (from a woman who chose not to unskilled low paying jobs…got some real skills and gets paid better than many men I know)
I also know many women like me - if you want a better paying job go get it…if you just want any old job don’t be surprised that it doesn’t pay well.
The West is going bust. Look at the Govt finances of France, Italy and Britain. Chronic fiscal deficits funded by debt that is peaking at levels that will soon erupt into a bond market crash.
Why is the West going bust? Essentially it’s down to welfarism and creeping woke policies like pay equity.
Everyone deserves more. Everyone is under valued but if we give into all these claims, as we’ve been doing progressively over the last 50 years, then we’re simply going to run out of money!
This is a dead issue and has been largely dismissed as complete crap by most people with a grain of commonsense.
Mechanics in NZ follow a rigorous 4-year Level 4 training schedule which includes an apprenticeship and polytech studies. There are no set qualifications for age care workers but they can earn more by completing the Level 2 NZ Certificate in Health and Wellbeing. If they did indeed use mechanics as a reference point for the remuneration of aged care workers, they screwed up badly....... and probably deliberately in order to inflate the outcome as much as possible.
Pay equity? No such thing!
Steve Ellis
I disagree. You make your case in terms of counterfactual logic — aged-care workers are not mechanics. Sure. But you also plan what you’ll do this weekend, and that involves reasoning about the future, not the present. It too is counterfactual. If you don’t like drawing parallel between mechanics and aged-care workers, then find a better parallel.
This isn’t in the ‘too hard basket’. Treating it as though it is looks like grasping for excuses to pay these women less. Do you want aged-care workers to have to hold 3 jobs to support themselves? Do you even care? You guys don’t sound like very generous neighbours, but mean and self-absorbed. We need a solution, one that does not involve kicking those at the bottom rungs of the ladder. They’re not bludgers. They’re working women trying to get on in life.
Anon 941, the solution to low remuneration for specified occupations is to bring in qualification thresholds. There are currently none for aged care, i.e. someone with no formal quals can do it. If you want parity with motor mechanics, raise the bar to Level 4 qualifications plus on-job training (in lieu of an apprenticeship). That doesn't make me "mean and self-absorbed", just someone who understands how labour markets work.
Anon 9.41 says "Do you want aged-care workers to have to hold 3 jobs to support themselves?" S/he clearly considers an employer has a duty to tailor wage rates to individual employees' lifestyles. But every employee has different personal circumstances and therefore a different set of needs. An employer has no interest in identifying those diverse needs, far less funding them. Their key employment criterion is bound to be how the skill, training and experience offered by any individual employee can contribute towards the employer's business objectives. The wage paid then reflects that contribution and is quantified by prevailing market circumstances. That's the way a labour market works. Any wider social benefit delivered is a bonus. The alternative model suggested by Anon 4.91 (and indeed all adherents to the living wage fantasy) is nothing less than the classic Marxist principle "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". And we don't have to look far to understand how badly that model has performed in modern history. Ask any Venezuelan or Cuban.
Maybe Wellington’s problems with bus drivers gives us some insight. Not enough drivers and the eventual solution was to pay more.
As others have said the solution is for care workers to pursue more experience and higher paid jobs.
I may be going out on a limb here but women tend to be less aggressive in pay negotiations and consequently end up with lower pay.
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