.
From the Huffington Post:
House GOP leadership is not likely to bring the Paycheck Fairness Act up for a vote any time soon, but House Democrats used a procedural move to force them to go on record opposing the bill on Thursday.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the sponsor of the equal pay legislation, filed a discharge petition on the bill Thursday morning that would immediately force a vote on it if she could collect 218 signatures. Democrats also put forth a motion on Thursday known as the “Previous Question,” which would have enabled them to put the Paycheck Fairness Act up for a vote, but Republicans killed the effort by a vote of 226 to 192.
Recent Census Bureau data shows that full-time working women make 77 cents for every dollar men make per year. The Paycheck Fairness Act, which DeLauro has introduced in eight consecutive Congresses, would expand the Equal Pay Act to close certain loopholes and allow employees to share salary information with their coworkers. It would also require employers to show that pay disparities between their male and female employees are related to job performance, not gender.
Most Republicans oppose the bill, and Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) said on the House Floor Thursday afternoon that the bill is a “liberal plot” to perpetuate the narrative that Republicans are anti-woman. DeLauro countered that she has yet to hear a reasonable excuse for Republicans to oppose the bill.
“I think we’re looking at a group of people who either don’t believe there is a pay gap or who just want to be contrary,” DeLauro told HuffPost in a phone interview. “This bill isn’t a liberal plot. We have enough statistical information to demonstrate that no matter what the job is, whether you’re a waitress or bus driver or civil engineer, women are paid less money.“…
But, hey, it was only 63 cents on the dollar when I was in high school, forty years ago. Progress!
Baud
At least Cole is fair. He pays all you front pagers nothing, irrespective of gender.
Unsympathetic
OT: Suck it, NRA. The background check bill won’t be filibustered.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Can anyone give me a quick summary of how this would work? You can certainly demonstrate statistically that it’s true that, on average, women are paid less than men for equivalent work but I have no idea how you would be able to prove it in the vast majority of individual cases given individual circumstances and allowing any sort of subjective criteria for setting pay.
amk
The goppers are literally killing americans in so many batshit crazy ways but let’s all talk about how the kenyan muslin is killing grandma with his chains.
cathyx
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Let’s say a company hires a few workers. Then women start at minimum wage, the men start at something higher.
danielx
Well, yeah! The unspoken thought: If it wasn’t for all these uppity wimmin insisting on edumacation and careers instead of making babies and keepin’ house, there would not be an unemployment problem for white men. Being underpaid is just the price they pay for not staying home where they belong.
Which, be it noted, is one of the reasons Hillary Clinton provokes such a violent reaction from the Republican id – she’s a highly accomplished woman. They really hate that.
Punchy
@Unsympathetic: they dont need it fillyd. The bill has a “no check if yer a friend” loophole so large that the whole thing is pretty much worthless.
Corner Stone
Speaking of imploding currency:
Bitcoin panic selling halves its value
“From a high of $260 (£169) for each Bitcoin, the value dropped to about $130 (£84) in just six hours.
The selling frenzy began as Bitcoin’s main exchange, MTGox, struggled to keep up with the volume of trade in the virtual currency.”
Man, who could’ve known? Oh yeah. This guy. Right here.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): That’s why part of the act would allow employees to discuss their salaries.
lamh35
So is Greenwald, Sirota and daily GOP shill gonna be Chris Hayes go to guest? If so I already miss Ed Shultz, just sayin’.
ETA: Hopefully Steve Kornacki’s “Up With…” show is better than Hayes’ new daily. I am looking forward to Karen Finney’s show too.
ETA 2: So MSNBC is no longer showing ANYTHING that middle class voters will watch. Say what you will about Ed Schultz, his show was geared to a middle class sensibility
Baud
@lamh35:
I can see why he did it, but I think Chris may have made a mistake going from the weekends to prime time daily.
? Martin
Not feeling so good about that NK nuke leak. Not sure what tune they’re trying to change to, but something is changing, and likely not for the better.
Suffern ACE
Besides firing me, what can my employer do if I share my salary with a co worker? Just wondering.
? Martin
@Baud: His format is difficult to pull off daily. Fortunately, he seems acutely aware of that. I expect the show will have a bit of a learning curve before they figure out something both interesting and sustainable.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: @lamh35: Yeah, I think that show will be revamped soon, smaller panels and more Villagers.
I’m getting an ad for Xian maternity wear.
Corner Stone
@Suffern ACE: Fire you. Doesn’t that pretty much cover it?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Suffern ACE:
That’s not enough? I’m not sure otherwise.
jl
@Corner Stone:
From your link:
‘ [growth in transactions] ” caused “lag” or delay, which meant that Bitcoins were not swapped between people as fast as needed.
“As expected in such situation people started to panic, started to sell Bitcoin in mass (panic sale) resulting in an increase of trade that ultimately froze the trade engine,” it said. About 80% of all the trade in Bitcoins goes through MTGox. ‘
If only the bitcoin users were ‘rational enough’ to act in a way that would not cause problems for the algorithms. Are mere humans worthy enough to live in the libertarian paradise that they, but maybe don’t, deserve?
‘ Tech news site Ars Technica linked the crash to the antics of an anonymous Bitcoin owner who gave away around $13,000 in Bitcoins via the Reddit social news site. The unnamed person, who used the alias Bitcoinbillionaire on Reddit, randomly picked 13 different people to receive the coins. One lucky Redditor got a gift of about $5,000 (£3,250). ‘
Or maybe that evil philanthropy caused the problem?
‘ The vast increase in interest in Bitcoins is also creating problems for some established members of the digital cash community.
Bitcoins are created, or mined, when computers complete a complicated mathematical problem. Many individuals have pooled their computer power to ensure this mathematical work is completed more quickly. ‘
Not as sexy and exotic as gold mines in the wild Andes of the New World. But working conditions probably better, and fewer lives lost.
Corner Stone
@lamh35: Maybe he’ll invite Juan Cole, Alinsky and Chomsky on as well.
This relentless bullshit against people who criticize the WH is ridiculous. Get over yourselves. They have a pipe about 1/50th the size of the WH and associates.
MikeJ
@? Martin: Filling 44 minutes of airtime everyday without sounding like an idiot is a rare, rare talent.
Hill Dweller
@lamh35: Hayes’ poor ratings are killing Maddow’s rating. Her show has fallen to third in the time slot, behind Fox and HLN. If that continues, Hayes is toast at the 8 o’clock slot.
Baud
@MikeJ:
It’s why most of them don’t even try.
Wag
Hey Annie, what the heck do you do when you post videos since the update? On my iPhone the window for the video is HUGE and obliterates your post. It’s so big I it appears like a corner of a video shown on a 48 inch flat screen tv.
Doesn’t happen with any other FP’er’s screen caps. It’s puzzling
Baud
@Wag:
I have the same issue on my ipod. My droid works fine, however. It’s weird.
PeakVT
The existence of the assessment was disclosed on Thursday by Representative Doug Lamborn, Republican of Colorado, three hours into a budget hearing of the House Armed Services Committee with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey. General Dempsey declined to comment on the assessment because of classification issues.
Lamborn’s district includes NORAD. Co-incidence?
MikeJ
@jl: Fuckin’ lag, man.
/ragequit
? Martin
@MikeJ:
Particularly when you may not know the subject matter of the show until a few hours ahead of time. But I don’t minimize the difficulty of the task.
Morzer
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
If you can demonstrate the average case in terms of pay given to employees of different gender holding equivalent positions, there’s no statistical reason why you couldn’t do it in individual cases. Yes, some companies will try and fudge things by deliberately changing job titles and so forth, but it ought to be possible to drill down to the actual duties/hours involved in doing a given job.
lamh35
@Corner Stone: Fuck you!
Just like every critic of WH means people hate Obama also every critic of people you like means I’m just “hatin” on em cause they critic Obama.
Fact: Ed Schultz showed along with his radio show had a MIDDLE CLASS sensibility. WTF on Chris Hayes current format appeals to MIDDLE CLASS voters who turn on Shultz not for some wonky, “you silly people just don’t understand, and need to learn from your betters” type of BS that goes on currently on Hayes show.
Again, FUCK you. It’s obviously time I re-install cleeks pie filer on my new computer.
Wag
@Baud: Annie hates mobile Apple users?
MikeJ
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
“Show me where the holy spirit touched you.”
Cacti
Women are making a higher percentage of a lower overall men’s wage in constant dollars.
Everyone loses in the Republican game.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Sure, but you have to do more than compare pay rates. You also have to compare the specific jobs that people are in, the specific qualifications each of them has and the specific performance reviews each of them has. It’s hard to tell what the bill does since almost all of it is making changes to the wording of existing law and doesn’t include the context of the current law. Without extensively looking at the text of several different bills side by side I can’t see what the effects are.
However, the bit that says:
is the kind of thing that looks perfectly reasonable until you imagine arguing about it in court. What constitutes being “job related”? Who determines what is a “business necessity”?
Vague regulations really can be a problem and I’m not sure just how much practical difference this would make in solving the issue of pay disparities.
Baud
@Wag:
Except it’s not just Anne’s post that are messed up on my ipod. It’s all videos on this site.
Suffern ACE
@Corner Stone: well I’m just wondering if they can sue me. The law we’re discussing allows workers to discuss salaries. I wanted to know to what extent employers can prevent employees from doing that now?
Ken
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) said the bill is a “liberal plot” to perpetuate the narrative that Republicans are anti-woman
So don’t fall into their trap. Vote for the bill, that will show people you aren’t anti-woman. Plus, once it passes they won’t be able to use the bill again.
It might also help if you can persuade the party to stop proposing mandatory vaginal ultrasound probe.
Mnemosyne
Since this is an open thread, here’s another thing I came across during yesterday’s outage — a book came out last year called The Cross in the Closet by a young Christian guy who decided that he couldn’t judge gay people until he had lived as one for a year. And he didn’t move away to a city where nobody knew him — he “came out” to his parents and his friends. Only three people knew the truth, including the (gay) friend who agreed to pretend to be his boyfriend for the year. It sounds like a really interesting book.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about his masquerade at first, but then I remembered that this guy wrote a best-seller after essentially doing the same thing in the 1950s South.
lamh35
@Mnemosyne: I was just gonna say it sounds like that “black like me” thing.
It could be intersted. I’ll try to add it to my Kindle, but I admit, I read a lot of trashy romance novels on there, so I rarely read too many non-fiction books unless recommended by people…lol
Corner Stone
@Suffern ACE: Nothing, in effect. But if you told someone and they didn’t like that info they would stick a shiv right in you and go straight to their boss/sponsor or HR and you’d be stuck hip deep in the shit for opening your mouth.
I don’t know about legal. But they do their damndest to make sure it’s not an easy discussion.
Cacti
@Mnemosyne:
I was going to say it sounded like a 21st century version of “Black Like Me”.
Great minds, something something.
Corner Stone
@lamh35: Interesting response. You sound clownish. Why you clowning?
Mnemosyne
@lamh35:
Did you see aimai’s recommendation of The Lost German Slave Girl? Not only does it have some great New Orleans history, it comes to a very interesting conclusion that I think is correct, but raises even more questions than it answers.
I read it last weekend in one day, I got so caught up in it.
PsiFighter37
I’ve gotten 3 responses from people who are down for an LA BJ meetup on the evening of May 10th or May 11th. If anyone else has a bid for this, please email me at [email protected]. Would be great to put some faces to names and all that jazz in a month or so.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Morzer: In most places everyone isn’t paid the same. There are lots and lots of valid reasons why people are paid different amounts for the same job. Once you’re looking at the individual level, just showing a differential isn’t sufficient. You have to show that there isn’t an acceptable difference between people.
I’m familiar with the process of how people qualify for unemployment compensation. One of the things my employers often did was make sure that they had something in the file of as many employees as possible that they could use to show cause for firing them. They spent time specifically looking for things just so that they would have them.
I just have a feeling that the law as it is written will mostly prompt employers to spend time to make sure that they have things they can point to on annual reviews that would justify a lower salary. If I thought that there would be much positive result from the law I’d be fine with it, much as I am with unemployment compensation. I just don’t think you’ll see very many winning cases given the language involved unless you have a lot of court second guessing as to what constitutes a “business necessity” and so forth.
I could be convinced otherwise if someone could explain how this would work without a lot of vague reasoning. I just don’t see it.
lamh35
@Cacti: @Mnemosyne: I don’t know why, but I was also reminded of this episode of Oprah, I think, where Oprah had this guy on who from all “appearances” was white as the driven snow, but upon further analysis, either his mother or his father (I can’t remember which) was a very light-skinned Black person who was themselves passing for white, in fact one of his grandparents was a dark-complexioned Black person.
But his mother/father was passing and married a white man/woman, so he was even lighter skinned and didn’t learn about his “black” family until one or the other parent died or something. It was like a scene from an Alex Haley novel
jamick6000
Matt Taibbi on a hedge fund asshole who sits on the board of “Students First,” a pro- charter school, anti- teachers having pensions organization while soliciting money from teachers’ pension funds: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/dan-loeb-simultaneously-solicits-betrays-pension-funds-20130411#ixzz2QBgEWGZh
It’s a good read.
lamh35
@Mnemosyne: Ooh, okay, another book to add to my queue.
My goal this summer is to read more non-trashy romance books, so this “list” is good thanks
:-)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
David Gregory famously sent a campaign plane attendant back to remix his sea breeze three times, and was once so mad at a waitress that Tim Russert called him an asshole and told him never to behave that way in his company again. Now he’s mad about people taking his parking space during some kind of hoity-toity home and garden tour
Major douchebag
TR
Virginia Foxx is a liberal plot to make Republicans look like they’re fucking morons.
lojasmo
@Corner Stone:
I don’t really mind when people criticize the WH. Certainly, I am not a fan of drones of chained CPI.
I just think you’re a dickhead, and people treat you roughly because you’re a dickhead.
Either behave better, or stop attributing criticism of YOUR PERSONAL STYLE to people kowtowing to the WH.
Dick.
Anne Laurie
@Wag:
Huh. Since I was informed, early in my FP tenure, that any image more than 500pixels wide wouldn’t display properly here, I’ve hand-tweaked the embed codes to keep them under the limit. (Current youtube standard seems to be 560.) I just checked the dashboard to make sure I hadn’t missed anything new, and everything looks the same as it did a month ago…
If the problem is only popping up on some platforms, I have to guess there’s a line of code somewhere in a plug-in that I haven’t got the skill, or permission, to access. But I’m not techno-sophisticated enough even to know if that’s a reasonable guess!
Best I can offer, send MisterMix an email, with the specifics, and warn him that there’s a glitch which should be corrected as the webmaster(s) work on the redesign?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): True, but at my job, everyone has a specific ranking. Comparing people at the same rank, and noticing that most of the men are making more than the women at the same rank, will be kind of a giveaway. The flip side is that when the employees can talk about their salaries, management will be less likely to screw one group over another. Assuming, that is, the employees stick together.
It’s another reason Executives don’t like Unions.
lojasmo
@Suffern ACE:
I have never understood the policy of punishing an employee for sharing his or her salary information.
also, know how I know you’re not in a union?
Morzer
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
You asked a statistical question. If you now wish to expand the focus of the question to include the wider context of our socio-economic system, the competence of the courts, and, of course, our politicians, that would, of course, produce a rather different response. I answered your question as you framed it and it’s rather pointless for you to try and change the question after the fact.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): I like the idea of allowing employees to share their salaries with each other. That part of the law I don’t have an objection to. And as I said, a lot depends upon what the current law says exactly and I don’t feel like tracking that down at the moment.
I suppose in the case of companies that have enough employees in given job categories that you can make a meaningful comparison it might work to make those distinctions. Of course, I *really* shudder any time a court tries to make sense of statistics.
? Martin
@TR:
The problem with this theory is that all Republicans make Republicans look like they’re fucking morons. To extend your theory to it’s logical conclusion, the entire Republican party is made up of liberal plants.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Morzer: Actually I was very specifically *not* asking a statistical question. I asked about individuals, a level at which statistical analysis breaks down.
David Koch
They could always bring Ed back. If he lost his spot due to ratings, then they can’t very well leave Hayes’ lower rated show on indefinitely. They could try some one else, but atleast Ed is a known quantity.
Hayes is trying to be a left version of Buckley’s PBS show Firing Line. A group of New York intellectuals having an aristocratic salon. That’s just not goin to work at 8PM on a weeknight. I mean, you don’t see Rachel trying to show off how smart she is with esoteric dronings.
Personally, give the show to someone with personality, like Liz Winstead. People want entertainment at 8PM not a lecture.
Suffern ACE
@lojasmo: well I’m “management”, now. Not the fake kind neither. But the kind what gets to give bad news to people so the executives can look visionary for giving good news. We don’t actually have a policy of firing for this. Although I am thinking that I would be on a heap of trouble if I took my underlings’ salaries and posted them around the office.
eemom
Now that Recent Comments is gone you can’t tell where the par-tay is anymore. : (
lamh35
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t even think he needs more “villagers”, but something that can draw in the same group of viewers that Ed was drawing in (initially, I think Ed’s rating slide occurred round the time he made the mistake of advocating not voting in 2010, my theory, he lost some viewers cause of it). I like MHP show and she certainly didn’t have a whole lot of villagers, but she never seems to be too bougie. Maddow too, doesn’t have a large number of villagers either, but she’s able to maintain her liberal gravitas and both criticize and applaud the adminstration.
Corner Stone
@Suffern ACE:
Ooooo…um, no. Don’t do that. You will get your metaphorical head ripped off. And possibly your literal one as well.
Don’t do that.
Morzer
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
No, no. This is silly stuff. Statistical analysis doesn’t “break down” at the individual level. You put the individual back into a statistical/comparative context rather than leaving the case as an isolated datum – which is, by the way, part of how you accumulate averages. Where did you think they came from?
And no, you can’t divorce statistics from this kind of issue that easily.
If you are going to keep arguing in this hand-waving kind of way, you will indeed “prove” that it is hopeless to try and do anything to improve the situation, because there will always be reasons to say that these things are oh so terribly complicated and so we can only give up and sit in wonder at the amazing complexity of the world.
Corner Stone
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Yeah! Pedantic specificity with no regard for actual real life circumstances nerd fight!!
Bring that fucking shit baby!
Yutsano
@eemom: It’s a treasure hunt. I keep an eye on the comment numbers and go where I see recent activity. It’s actually kind of fun once you get the hang of it.
? Martin
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
A company of any given size is going to have job classifications that they work from. Any employees that are outside of the classification system are probably earning enough money that the law would have limited value to them anyway (their compensation would be negotiated case by case, depend on other factors, etc).
In short, employees at the bottom need to be treated like cogs simply because it’s impossible for HR to scale well (but managers can influence who promotes and such – that level scales okay). Because they’re cogs, they can be measured statistically quite well.
jamick6000
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: dude, good find.
Witnesses claimed that Gregory warned the organizers that he “knows all the politicians in town”
*Witnesses barf in unison*
? Martin
@Yutsano: I spent one night a while back trying to get all of the front page threads to prime number of comments. I think you were one of the people constantly fucking it up.
I was kinda drunk.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
It wasn’t a recommendation, just a prediction of how Phil Griffin (?) would want them to go. I like what I’ve seen, but trying to talk substantively to four people in one (or two) seven minute segments doesn’t seem to work, IMHO. I think in two weeks Hayes’ format will look a lot more like Maddow’s. And I agree with you it was a bad idea to get rid of Schultz as an authentic voice for labor/middle-class issues, even when I disagree with him (he’s bought into a lot of job-creating myths about Keystone, for example). As for the nitwittery about this being about Obama, I heard a few minutes of Ed Schultz on the radio yesterday, and he’s a lot angrier than Hayes or Maddow about C-CPI. That said, Hayes comparing C-CPI (which I think is a bad idea and worse politics) to Greek austerity programs was pretty silly, especially when it’s chained to a 50 billion public works program and an increase in the minimum wage.
RaflW
@Hill Dweller: Hayes’ poor ratings are killing Maddow’s rating.
Here’s my deal: I just don’t have the desire to watch TV talking heads on a weeknight. I’m online a lot M-F, get political news from lots of places, don’t need my news hole filled.
Up on Saturday morning, and sometimes Sunday, was a refreshing and smart way to start the day. Capping the evening is different, I want total mental check-out non-politics TV, or I want Jon Stewart (I know, lots of ppl here don’t like the Daily Show any more. It still is funny more than it’s centrist crap for me).
So I’ve gone from being a Chris watcher with Up to a non-watcher on weeknights. We’ll see if the new Up still works. Hey, Jay Leno got his old show back, maybe Chris can reclaim the weekend morning thing??
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Morzer: No. Absolutely, no. Proving that an individual is paid less than average does not demonstrate a violation of the law. The argument is going to be about whether paying them less than average is justified by the particulars of their situation. That has ZERO to do with statistical analysis.
Go back and read the piece of the law that I quoted earlier. Tell me how that has anything to do with statistics.
And, by the way, my bachelor’s degree is in statistics. I know how they are calculated. I also recognize when those calculations don’t have anything to do with the relevant question.
Hill Dweller
@David Koch: MSNBC has fallen behind HLN during both the 8pm and 9pm slots, dropping them to third place. O’Donnell’s 10pm show is beating HLN and getting much better ratings than the 8pm slot.
Maddow’s ratings have fallen so much, she is now trailing Dr. Drew’s show on HLN.
Maddow’s show is MSNBC’s top rated, and highest revenue producer. They’ll dump Hayes in a heartbeat to remedy her sagging ratings.
Yutsano
@? Martin: Ya coulda given me a heads up or something. Jeez I would have gladly helped with something like that.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@? Martin: I’m not arguing that they can’t be measured statistically. I’m saying that the portion of the law that is going to be the center of any given case has nothing to do with those measures. It’s going to come down to the question of *why* the plaintiff is being paid less. And that debate is going to hinge on all sorts of vagueness.
? Martin
@RaflW:
It’s okay baby, I promise it’ll feel good.
Suffern ACE
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: my word. He’s 42 years old and so he’s going to be with us for 30-40 more years. Yay us!
RaflW
Oh, I just have to point and laugh at the idea that DeLauro’s bill “is a ‘liberal plot’ to perpetuate the narrative that Republicans are anti-woman.”
The 1) total cluelessness and 2) whiny victim claims of GOPers like Foxx are giggle/cringe inducing. How anyone at this point could NOT see that Republicans are anti-woman (well, vehemently opposed to women having fulfilling lives outside of a tether to a 1946 vintage Blue Bonet stove, anyway) is beyond me.
But good on Rep. Rosa for putting up a nice bright flashing arrow sign.
? Martin
@Yutsano: Well, it’s more fun when nobody knows you’re doing it and then you need to spam a thread with 7 comments to hit the next prime, without looking like you’re spamming a thread.
Suffern ACE
Anyone for a balloon juice meet up in Prague or Dresden next month?
Ok I’m bored. Where’s the share your crazy dream thread when you need one.
? Martin
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
But if you can show that a class of employees are systematically paid less, then it doesn’t matter. For any given population size, you can quite easily calculate the likelihood that the class is being systematically discriminated against, or whether it’s just the result of random performance issues. That’s Stats 101 level analysis, too. Easy enough that the courts can probably even figure it out. Probably.
Once a systematic discrimination is established, then the burden on the employer becomes much larger.
lamh35
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: yep, I heard that about Ed’s radio show, but not surprisingly, the radio show was always a different beast. The majority of people I know DO NOT LISTEN to talk radio but they do watch political shows on TV and Ed Shultz’s tv show was def geared to a middle classes sensibility. the same people who used to watch Ed, just aren’t really feeling Hayes right now and it’s beginning to effect Maddow’s lead-in ratings as well, and as people have said Maddow is the primetime lineups pride and joy and MSNBC would def put Maddow’s success above Hayes
jamick6000
@David Koch:
lmao you’re dumb. he just had the “esoteric dronings” of striking fast food workers last week at his aristocratic salon. those minimum-wage aristocrats.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@? Martin: It’s still going to come down to exactly what I said: a debate about whether the specifics of the individual’s case are “job related” or involve a “business necessity”. That IS NOT a question of statistics. That’s still where the debate is going to be conducted and I still think that it’s going to be very hard to create any sort of definition of that that is simultaneously solid enough to make much winning litigation possible without being so rigid as to be a real problem even for companies that aren’t discriminating.
And with that, St. Cloud’s loss and my splitting headache, I’m going to bed. It just would have been nice if any of you had addressed the concerns I expressed rather than trying to tell me that you can make distinctions in individual cases with statistics. Look up the meaning of “small sample size” sometime and decide whether 1 constitutes a meaningful sample.
jamick6000
“let’s make sweeping conclusions about a show based on its first week’s ratings.” –idiots
Mnemosyne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
I think you misunderstand what “business necessity” means in legal terms. It’s a very specific term that basically says an employer is allowed to discriminate on the basis of sex or another illegal discrimination category (ie ADA, age, etc.) IF they can prove it’s necessary to run the business.
For example, if one of the jobs at the company requires employees to work with chemicals that don’t affect men but could cause miscarriages in women, the company is justified in saying that only men can hold those jobs (and get those higher paychecks) because of “business necessity.”
It’s not a nebulous thing. It’s a very specific legal term with a very specific meaning. You seem to be reading all kinds of things into the term that just don’t exist.
? Martin
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
I think you’re missing my point. If the person in question is in a discriminated class as statistically determined, then the burden shifts from “tell us why this employee is paid less” to “of course this employee is paid less, it appears you discriminate against everyone in this class. Prove why every employee in this class is justified in being paid less.”
Once broad discrimination is established, any argument that pertains to that individual is shot. Look, I’ve been through this. If you establish a pattern of behavior with employees and then try to single one person out against that pattern, even with perfect documentation, you’re fucked. You have no credibility. Your claims become impossible to substantiate against the broader pattern of behavior.
David Koch
@jamick6000: “LEAVE
BRITTNEYCHRIS, ALONE!!!!”clap louder, maybe his ratings will stop tanking.
Karmakin
@? Martin: The core problem here, and I mostly agree with Tissue, is that there’s a lack of understanding of how the gears actually turn, so to speak.
So talking about this kind of wage inequality…where does the problem come into play?
#1. Differing amounts to start. This is actually mostly at, in my experience, those people who you say that this law really doesn’t protect. I’d go the exact opposite and say that this law is written specifically FOR them (with the lower classes be damned). Most lower class jobs pay a set amount to start and gender really never comes into it. Yes, there are some obviously sexist employers, and quite frankly, I think we should turn over their businesses to the employees when this happens, but this is the exception rather than the rule. However, banning banning of workers talking about wages really is a good fix for this, although if the labor law doesn’t have real teeth then neither does this aspect of the bill.
#2. Diverging wages while employed. This is actually the much trickier part. To put it bluntly, individualized performance based wage increases incorporate a lot of low-level sexism (and even necessary sexism..I’ll get to that in a second) and really magnify it to create these divergent raises.
What do I mean by “necessary sexism”? Well, the big thing here is maternity leave. (Note: Fully support paternity leave as well although unless you make it mandatory it’s never going to equal out). Let’s assume that a woman misses two years to have two kids. That means she’s missed out on two raises, if done on a yearly performance structure. That’s actually going to snowball and ensure that in terms of wages, unless there is a significant gap in performance, that woman is always going to be behind her male counterparts. That’s the power of “compound interest”.
There are other factors, that it’s more socially acceptable for men to work long hours than women as example, and the fact that’s generally seen as a positive thing (I disagree with that).
But the point is, that without actually doing something about this very common system of individualized performance based raises, you’re basically shifting deck chairs on the Titanic, for the most part. What Tissue is saying is that based on raises, most employers are going to be able to EASILY justify any sort of wage differential they have, as long as they hire everybody at the same wage (or even based on set criteria such as education level).