The Justice of Pay Discrimination

Article here. Excerpt:

'First of all, it is exceedingly rare to find two people who are doing precisely the same work. Perhaps only two workers doing the same job at the same rate on the same assembly line would qualify. Two secretaries in an office, who in theory probably have the same duties, might still find that one of them ends up typing twice as many letters as the other. And this second secretary may in turn do three times as much filing as the first. One might take half again as many phone calls as the other yet do so in the same amount of time because she is able to get to the nub of the conversation more quickly. Even in the plumbing example I cited at the outset, the two toilets were different models, so plumber number two may have had an easier time of it or found cheaper parts than plumber number one. Productivity, proficiency, and even a certain amount of chance play huge roles in determining exactly what, and how much, work each person does. It is next to impossible to say that any two people have done “equal” work.

Even if it could be shown beyond all doubt that employee A and employee B were doing exactly the same work, there would still remain the problem illustrated by the plumbing story. If A and B each agreed to work at the wages they were being paid, then there is no injustice in paying A more than B for equal work. In the case of Lilly Ledbetter, who sued Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. for alleged pay discrimination, the fact that Ledbetter continued to work for Goodyear for 19 years and, presumably, to cash her paychecks indicates that she was satisfied with her compensation during that time. Had she at any time disagreed that she was being compensated fairly for the work she was doing, she had only to request an increase in pay and then, if the company declined her request, to quit.'