There is a bill slowly moving across Congress....the Paycheck Fairness Act. Basically, it is this "game-changer" where female executives (and just about any level of female employee)....can come up and ask the company for salary information across the board without any fear. It also makes it much easier for a lawyer to walk in, declare a law violation, and start a court suit.
The President, and most Democrats would like to see it passed. The odds are....it won't pass in the current form.
The push on this is obvious....if you go across the business communities of America....there's a difference in pay. Over the last twenty years....it's been correcting itself. Obviously, people believe it's not fast enough.
I've sat and pondered over this, and it creates a terrific atmosphere where a company would have an open position, and just plain refuse to hire a female.....because she might bring in a lawsuit eventually, which they really don't want.
You can imagine a company of five hundred people, and five divisions. The developmental division has a sixty year old guy, who has a masters degree in electrical engineering, and forty years of experience. Down the hall is a second division, with a 39-year old female business manager with a MBA. She learns one day that this old guy is making $50k more a year than her. She approaches the boss to demand a lofty pay-raise. He declines....citing the forty year of experience being the qualifier.
She goes to court. Relations within the division are turning negative, and half the employees of the female manager are contemplating moving because of bad blood. Months pass, and the court date is about to start. The company offers her $100k to just drop the case and forget about this whole mess....trying to save legal costs. She refuses.
The judge reviews the entire case, and eventually decides that the company was right. Because of the Paycheck Fairness Act....she comes right back to work the next day. She's angry and hostile toward the whole company. They can't fire her or do anything with her. There's a steady turn-over now within her division....almost five percent a month of the divisions employees leave.
Two years pass, and the company is in serious trouble with this one division. It's causing potential distractions within the other divisions now. So they offer the paycheck-queen a simple $500k deal to just plain leave, with no legal action. She refuses.
The company hires a $10k a week expert to come in and tell them how to fix the problem. Simple.....he draws up a reorganization chart where they go from five divisions to nine divisions. The division of this female manager? They chop eighty percent of the personnel off into a new division. With fewer people and responsibilites.....the company can now offer a wage cut. She gets angry.....starts another lawsuit. Another $100k is wasted on legal fees, and the company wins yet again. So she finally agrees to leave, with a $500k pay-off.
The problem with Congress getting involved in the business world.....they really aren't helping in the ways they think. They simply fix one problem.....to create a much bigger problem in the end.
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