I know a personnel director that hires women into positions that they perform just as well at as men. If he hired only men into this position, even though women do it just as well, it would be viewed as discrimination. However, these are entry level positions and it's my proposal that a person should be hired as a long-term investment, yielding greater dividends for the employer. This would mean assessing the applicants potential for internal promotion. Also, viewing applicants as potential long-term investments might require not only testing the applicants, but also assessing them based upon certain biological indicators that have proven time and time again to be a major liability.
When technical positions become available, positions that are mechanical and somewhat physically demanding, rarely do currently employed women apply for these jobs. I've only known of 1, possibly 2 women out of 100's (or 1000's) that have gone on to fill these positions. Approximately 5 others attempted the job qualification process and either dropped out or didn't pass it. Compare these stats to approximately 40% of currently employed men applying for these jobs, with a 90% success rate in the qualification process. Now there's a severe shortage of candidates for technical positions. Also, hiring for these technical positions, instead of internally promoting, is very costly.
Shouldn't a person be able to disciminate against women if these are the results? How can these issues even be discussed in a business environment with all the discimination laws in place? Even if they wanted to attempt a solution that results in a win-win, they couldn't get to this solution without first considering women in a way some would consider sexist.
"The best way to bail out the economy is with liberty, not with federal reserve notes." - pairunoyd
"The vision of the Austrian must be greater than the blindness of the sheeple." - pairunoyd
Businesses sohuld be privately owned, and owners should be allowed to do whatever they wish with their property.
JAlanKatz: Businesses sohuld be privately owned, and owners should be allowed to do whatever they wish with their property.
I agree 100%. Just like I can decide who comes into my home, I should be able to decide who comes into my business. There should be no delineation between the two. But what would you or anyone else propose as a course of action to either address or resolve this issue, considering the current political and sociological climate?
pairunoyd:But what would you or anyone else propose as a course of action to either address or resolve this issue, considering the current political and sociological climate?
Secession.
What are women good for? Why, of course: sex, bringing me my beer, doing the dishes, and pumping out babies. Okay, maybe I'm being a bit facetious (although those are among the things they can be good for).
Have you ever heard of the Peter Principle? You are only promoted to your level of incompetence.
Where are your feelings, man? Emotions have a large impact on decisions.
I'm thinking the pre-qualification process for 'new hire' applicants needs to be more rigorous. Basically, all it is now is an interview and it's pathetic. I've talked w/ some new hires and many times their interview consisted of, "When can you start?" There also needs to be some sort of commitment on the part of the new hire to attain higher positions. It'd have to be based on time and/or opportunities. If they fail to meet minimum standards, they could receive a reduction in compensation or even be fired. Maybe they could re-classify the entry level job as, Technical Apprentice. There'd be a course that position would follow and if it's not followed there'd be varying degrees of reprecussions, based upon how off-course the Apprentice has gotten. This would inform females upfront that this is a mechanical/technical position and requires heavy-ish, dirty work. I guess the company would have to show some preference to pre-qualified females if they wanted to keep them numbers w/i a certain range. But at least they'd be more likely to hire promotable females as opposed to unpromotable or unmotivated.
pairunoyd:I'm thinking the pre-qualification process for 'new hire' applicants needs to be more rigorous.
Exactly. A set of objective criteria for hiring and promotion, if applied rigorously, prevents the selection of females (or males for that matter) who are unlikely to succeed or advance. Such criteria are unassailable if qualified women are hired and promoted, though the history you relate indicates there won't be many.
Let me just remind you gentlemen that woman do in fact make up approximately 50% of the population, and if you ever want to see libertarianism become a reality, you're going to have to convince them too; unless of course you consider women subhuman, in which case you won't have to worry about convincing them at all will you?
The above quote may be made partly in jest, but statements like those definitely don't help. In fact they make my blood boil.
leonidia: Let me just remind you gentlemen that woman do in fact make up approximately 50% of the population, and if you ever want to see libertarianism become a reality, you're going to have to convince them too; unless of course you consider women subhuman, in which case you won't have to worry about convincing them at all will you? The above quote may be made partly in jest, but statements like those definitely don't help. In fact they make my blood boil.
I don't see that 'quote' anywhere in this thread.
First of all, I'm of the position that employers should be able to hire or fire whomever he/she wants, so long as the employment contract is followed when firing. If the business owner wants to hire only people who had previous martian abduction experience (with all due respect to those who have that experience), so be it. That being said, shouldn't the obviouse solution to the problem you posed be: greater wage differentiation between entry-level positions and the more advanced and demanding positions?
Someone has to fill the entry-level positions. The fact that a lot of women are in the job market only for a short time span before having their babies or only a part-time job as the second earner in the family after the babies are born should be a huge benefit to the employers who are wise enough to be accommodative and take advantage of that special pool of relatively inexpensive labor: not everyone can be promoted to the higher levels in the organization . . . after all, there are less seats at the higher levels. Keep and promote the most competent ones with higher pay, so she can decide between herself and her husband who stays home to watch babies and who becomes the bread winner of the family, let the rest go if they wish. Frankly, voluntary departure solves a lot of potential employee turn-over problems.
JimS: First of all, I'm of the position that employers should be able to hire or fire whomever he/she wants, so long as the employment contract is followed when firing. If the business owner wants to hire only people who had previous martian abduction experience (with all due respect to those who have that experience), so be it. That being said, shouldn't the obviouse solution to the problem you posed be: greater wage differentiation between entry-level positions and the more advanced and demanding positions? Someone has to fill the entry-level positions. The fact that a lot of women are in the job market only for a short time span before having their babies or only a part-time job as the second earner in the family after the babies are born should be a huge benefit to the employers who are wise enough to be accommodative and take advantage of that special pool of relatively inexpensive labor: not everyone can be promoted to the higher levels in the organization . . . after all, there are less seats at the higher levels. Keep and promote the most competent ones with higher pay, so she can decide between herself and her husband who stays home to watch babies and who becomes the bread winner of the family, let the rest go if they wish. Frankly, voluntary departure solves a lot of potential employee turn-over problems.
(I actually thought I was replying to a comment in my thread, Making It Work. Hopefully the following makes sense...)
VERY good point. I've mentioned before that the pay difference is way too small. I think the difference between entry-level and the lowest mechanical position is just under $2.00/hr. If the entry-level position's pay is $15/hr and the 1st level mechanical job is $17/hr, I'd guess $12 and $20 would be much more appropriate. The only way I could imagine the company doing this is by ending all cost-of-living raises for entry-level employees and increasing the other positions' pay rates at whatever rate of increase they choose.
One of the biggest costs for this particular dept is the idleness of technical/mechanical employees. They're SUPPOSED to work the full shift, even when their particular technical skill isn't called for. There's a VERY strong, unpredictable ebb and flow (cycle?) to the demand for the technical 'supply' (employees), much more so than the demand for entry-level supply. The technical employee is supposed to contribute to meeting the demands of non-technical work until their technical training is called for. Their technical training might be needed the full 8 hrs one day and only 1 1/2 hrs the next. I want go into with this post, but I imagine they could cut the work force by 10-20%. However, I don't know the exact value of the trade-offs: How much idle time vs machine downtime? Is it better to have X number of semi-idle workers (not using all their training 100% of the time) so that when their training IS called for they'll be able to reduce downtime. I guess it's a call between downtime costs and surplus employees costs.
Yes, you make a good and obvious point. Thanks!
For some reason the quote didn't attach in my previous post. Here it is again.
Brainpolice:What are women good for? Why, of course: sex, bringing me my beer, doing the dishes, and pumping out babies. Okay, maybe I'm being a bit facetious (although those are among the things they can be good for).