There's an interesting article over at Pink Magazine about the idea that making everyone's pay rate public will eliminate gender-based pay descrepancies.
It's not a bad concept. I know that I always seem to make the assumption (especially back when I was employed in the boy's club of finance) that men in the same position as me are making more than me, and I'm curious if that is actually true. Will eliminating pay confidentialty make women more likely to stand up and demand the pay they deserve? After all, it's easy to assume that you're being paid the same as your co-workers. How angry would you be if you found out that the dingus in your department who always arrives twenty minutes late to meetings and always shirks away from new assignments is being paid more? Eliminating the mystery surrounding pay may make the discrepencies harder to swallow.
On the other hand, I do think that you pay should be based on more than just your job title. It's a function of your experience, education, performance, leadership abilities... everything. Would eliminating confidentiality force corporate america to fall even further into a myriad of bureaucracy, documenting every discrepancy in a dozen different HR forms -- all filled out in triplicate? I'm not sure. I'm also not sure if that isn't worth it to guarantee pay equality.
The idealistic part fo me thinks that pay discrepancies will go away over time, as more and more women enter the workforce and, more importantly, continue to excel in the workforce. The other part of me is sick of fighting so hard for something that should be such a no-brainer. Equal pay for equal work. Why is this concept still so difficult?
What do you think? Would you want your salary disclosed for the sake of equality?
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