Comments for Maryland Employment Law Developments

Comment on Fourth Circuit Allows Sex Discrimination in Severance go Forward by Sybil

Sybil — Sun, 20 May 2012 19:44:53 +0000

The wage gap is real. I saw it at my own workplace. Picture this: I get to do a human roeuercss review of individuals, their job descriptions, job titles and pay. Lo and behold, I found a low-level clerk being paid far more than any of the top clerks. Far far more! I pointed out this anomaly to my boss. It turned out that the highly paid clerk in question had something none of the rest of the clerical sector had XY chromosomes. After my boss gave me a feeble defense for this injustice, it was not long before I saw change (his conscience must have got to him): a huge 30% increase for the top clerical staff (the XY one remaining at his original rate)and another raise for most of the remaining clerical levels. Meanwhile, how long had we lost thousands of dollars in income because of the unfairness? I figure each and every workplace I’ve been in has structured work in similar unfair ways. We don’t always get to see it.

Comment on The NLRB Poster Rule is Delayed Again by Jay

Jay — Sun, 20 May 2012 14:48:29 +0000

Lis -There are elements of the pay gap that women’s farluie to negotiate simply cannot account for. For instance, one study (published in Harvard Law Review I’m not at home right now, but if you ask I can dig up the exact citation) found that even when men and women use identical negotiating strategies, men are charged less for buying a car than women.Another example, cited in part nine of my series, is the example of blind auditions for orchestras. Women are more likely to be offered a job if the person hiring them doesn’t know the sex of the applicants. Again, that can’t be accounted for by farluie to negotiate.Nonetheless, I certainly believe it’s possible even likely that farluie to negotiate can account for part of the wage gap. At the same time, one reason that women may negotiate less is that they get less reward for negotiating. To quote from the link you provided:Despite recent gains made by women in many realms and the comparative openness of Western democracies to progress, our society still perpetuates rigid gender-based standards for behavior standards that require women to behave modestly and unselfishly and to avoid promoting their own self-interest. New generations of children are taught to abide by and internalize these standards, making them less likely as adults to rebel against these common beliefs. In addition, women who do rebel against these standards by pushing more overtly on their own behalf often risk being punished. Sometimes they’re called pushy or bitchy or difficult to work with. Sometimes their skills and contributions are undervalued and they’re passed over for promotions they deserve. Other times, they’re left out of information-sharing networks. Experiencing this treatment themselves or seeing other women treated this way, many women struggle with intense anxiety when they consider asking for something they want anxiety that can deter them from asking at all or interfere with their ability to ask well.In addition, even when women do negotiate, they often get less than a man in the same situation might get. Sometimes this happens because women set less aggressive goals going into their negotiations than men set and sometimes it happens because both men and women in our society typically take a harder line against women than they take against men in a negotiation. They make worse first offers to women, pressure women to concede more, and themselves concede much less. This doesn’t simply limit the results women produce when they do negotiate. If the benefits from negotiating are likely to be small and the process promises to be difficult, many women feel less incentive to ask in the first place.So women asking less probably is a cause of the wage gap but at the same time, it’s also an effect of sexism and the wage gap.

Comment on Older Unemployed Fear they Will Never Rejoin the Job Market by Dire Future Predicted for Older Unemployed Workers | Maryland Employment Law Developments

Wed, 16 May 2012 14:01:09 +0000

[...] a year. This disparity was worse for men, for less educated workers, and for minority workers. As reported here before, many older workers realistically face a future where they are too young to retire, but will never [...]