“Hundreds of thousands of men working in the public sector are facing salary cuts of up to £15,000 a year as equal pay agreements take effect, The Times has learnt. Compensation claims for up to 1.5 million workers could cost the taxpayer more than £10 billion and mean that male staff lose up to 40 per cent of their salary.” According to commenters on the article, the agreements are based on the principle known in the U.S. as comparable worth — that is to say, not equal pay for doing the same job, but equal pay for doing jobs that some evaluator decides are equally difficult or meritorious or socially productive, such as (hypothetically) librarian and garbage collector. (Jill Sherman, “Thousands face pay cut under new equality law”, Times Online, Mar. 12)
Interestingly, while unions have apparently sought in many cases to minimize disruptions by phasing in the new principles, entrepreneurial lawyering is destabilizing the situation: “aggressive no-win, no-fee lawyers are now unpicking the agreements by winning higher compensation payments for thousands of individual claimaints.” This appears to be leading to tension between the unions and the private employment lawyers. Some highly paid women, as well as many men, are expected to be hit with pay cuts.
One Comment
My inner libertarian is loving this. Why? Well, these are government jobs after all. If fewer people want to work for the government, that’s a good thing.
Of course, the British government could still push this policy out to private businesses even though it is working out badly for them.