Incomparable Worth

Challenging proponents of equal pay for comparable worth, Steven Rhoads argues that implementation has been plagued by critical and insurmountable problems. Where success has been more frequently touted - in Minnesota, England, and Australia - job evaluation results are arbitrary and political rather than objective. In some cases, Rhoads demonstrates, comparable worth has paid workers more than their bosses, while others previously paid equally for doing equal work have been assigned unequal pay. These and other bizarre outcomes have created severe problems for public and private managers. But the most significant costs of comparable worth go far beyond the administrative. By substituting administered wages for market-determined ones, it produces gross inefficiency in labor markets. Wages are held down in the face of shortages, thereby preventing companies and governments from attracting the skilled workers they need. Wages are inflated in the face of surpluses, thus reducing employers' willingness to hire and creating new unemployment. More important still, in the only long-established comparable-worth system - in Australia - the political costs of comparable worth are as severe as the economic ones. In Australia the ill will and bitterness already apparent among the losers in Minnesota localities are magnified many times. People there have come to think of wages as reflecting society's judgment about an individual's worth, and deep and abiding quarrels emerge over tiny differences in pay. In the politicized Australian system, male-dominated unions seek to get the attention of arbitration commissions or recalcitrant companies by strikes, veiled threats, and even physical intimidationand sabotage. The Australian wage-fixing system has produced an unusually contentious politics, dismal economic performance, and few if any real gains for women workers. This is the first book to look at the implementation of comparable worth from a critical perspective. It shows that the principles of comparable worth or pay equity are not reconcilable with those of a market economy.