[MargaretKur]

We all should be worked up over it! It's against the law, remember!

Yesterday I read in a professional organization's newsletter about the average pay for workers. It was the usual comparison article: according to geographical region, according to credentials, according to job title, etc.

The profession has long been a female-dominated one. Only in recent years have men started to work in this field, but when I looked at the comparison of wages between men and women doing the same job with the same credentials, guess what? The pay for men was about 20% higher than for women! I really got upset when I saw that. What upsets me even more is that in most cases, women have more seniority in those jobs than men!

Many of these jobs are in institutions which have graded job levels with starting wages/salaries and annual evaluations based on a point system. One company's system only allows a maximum 3% raise. There are no cost-of-living increases.

In a setting like this, how can there be such a disparity between men's and women's pay? Employers are breaking the company's rules and thereby breaking the law.

Why do companies discourage employees from discussing their wages or salaries? Some even threaten them with termination if they're "caught" discussing such a verboten subject! The only reason I can think of is that they don't want people to know the truth of what's been going on for years. Discussing pay isn't a crime, but unequal pay is!

If employers paid everyone equally and fairly, according to the law rather than by gender or by favoritism, they would feel no need for secrecy, would they???

I'm tired of the secrecy. As I said, if things are done honestly, fairly, and lawfully there would be no need for secrets and no disparities in pay.

Well, back from my dreamland, I guess. Unless the government requires audits for company payrolls and justification for such pay discrepancies, I don't see where there will be an end to it.

Does anyone else think employers should have to justify disparities in pay?

Does anyone else think employers must not be permitted to be able to penalize or terminate employees who "dare to compare" such things as pay? To me, it's the same as retaliation against whistleblowers.