by Ellen Kudlicki

Created on: June 13, 2008

The idea that men and women should be paid equally sounds good. And in intent, it is well meaning and virtuous. Two workers doing the same job should be paid the same. But this is a nation where we are not indentured to our jobs. We are free to come and go at will. As such, pay and compensation should be based on achievement and merit over blanket policies that penalize good workers and alleviated marginal workers from reaching for higher goals.

This is not a new idea. Early on, before labor unions, workers had little voice or recourse when it came to compensation. Before the Industrial Revolution a person was either born into a trade or was apprenticed to a master craftsman or tradesman with the idea that they would learn a job skill that would last for their entire lives. Except in large cities, there was little competition, so the local smith or wheelwright or shop keeper could safely keep employees without needing to raise wages. In this day and age, where we are an increasingly mobile society, workers can change careers at any point in life. Because of this, we cannot say that one engineer or another deserves more compensation simply because they fulfill this job title. We must look at performance in order to maintain a high level of quality. If you look at the comparisons between jobs where everyone gets the same pay and those where pay is based on performance, the higher level of job quality and efficiency almost always goes to the job site where people are paid based on how well they do their jobs, not just what they do.

Many feminists say that this idea of paying for merit flies in the face of true job equality. But how can you say two workers are equal if you pay them the same without reviewing what they have accomplished? To create a situation where all workers at any grade level are paid the same regardless of how well they do their job, is to insinuate that women aren't able to reach those higher goals. Is that not a sexist sentiment? Surely female workers are able to attain the same high standards as their male counterparts and get the same high level of compensation. And by the way, if we insist on making all compensation equal regardless of performance, then women who do their jobs will not get the higher wages and perq's they deserve. So when making these judgment calls based on blanket decisions remember that while this insures equal pay for all workers, it doesn't insure that all workers will get what they deserve.

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