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Subject:Re: Equal pay for equal work From:Barb Miller <millerb -at- TCPLINK -dot- NREL -dot- GOV> Date:Tue, 13 Jun 1995 09:55:35 MDT
Richard said
"When I managed programmers in the 1960s and 1970s we tried to AVOID taking
advantage of people who had been underpaid in the past. We looked at what we
were asking them to do and how well we thought they could do it, and we paid
them accordingly. Everyone doing approximately the same job got
approximately the same pay.
Often (particularly for women and minorities) this meant we wound up paying
new hires a lot more than they had been paid in prior jobs."
This reminds me of a discrimination lawsuit several years back against
Allstate Insurance. It seems their normal practice was to offer a base
salary based on the new agents' previous job salary plus commission.
Because women traditionally left lower paying jobs than men, they
always started at a much lower base salary than the male agents and
could never catch up. If I recall, they won their lawsuit.
Another reason not to rely on salary history.
Barb Miller
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
millerb -at- tcplink -dot- nrel -dot- gov
