Comparable Worth Finds Rockdale
Bill Starbuck was proud to be assigned to the city beat of The Bill, a for two years now, was paying his dues at a small town newspaper, hoping to work his way up to a rigger daily. The city beat would mean that Bill could draw on his background in journalism and political science Wabash College to write news stories with substance. His prior assignment the features section The Rockdale Times was interesting but not intellectually stimulating.
Bill's first major assignment was coming up in two days with an invitation to cover a breakfast meeting with the city council. Clyde Langston, Rockdale's city manager, was scheduled to present the revised city budget. Bill prepared for the meeting by calling one of his contacts in the city office for some "inside" information. Bill had been dating Jill Bateman, a secretary to the HR executive director and he was confident he could learn something about the breakfast meeting agenda
As Bill hung from his call to Jill, he won dared what the rumor of a raise for some city employees could mean. If anything, the city was expected to trim its budget because of a slowdown in the local economy and loss of revenues due to shutdown of two plants in the community within he past year. According to Jill, rumor was that some of the clerical and administrative staff employees were scheduled for midyear pay adjustments. The figure working the hallways was a three percent pay raise, which would come as a pleasant surprise to the 95 employees in the office clerical positions
As Bill arrived at the Wednesday breakfast meeting, he quickly scanned the room to identify the four city councilmen and one council. Oman. Bill wanted to interview at least three the members his story, which was due by 1:00 p.m. After Mayor Ernie arrived, the city council, city manager, and local news reporters finished a quick cordial breakfast. Clyde Langston called the group to attention with a rap on his water goblet, and the cordial ban. erring quickly subsided. Clyde distributed a five- page report of the preliminary budget. Bill quickly scanned the report and noted that the $13 total was considerably trimmed down from last year's budget $16.4 million. Then, as Bill antic pated, Clyde pointed out a $41,000 line increase in salaries within the pared-down budget.
Clyde proceeded to explain that the city had done an analysis of their 95 administrative office clerical positions and their 350 technical craft poisons and decided to make some pay adjustments. all but one of the administrative office clerks are workers women, while only 27 of the technical craft women. The pay range for office workers ranges from a low of $5.79 per hour to a high of $11.17 per hour, with an average of $6.30 per hour. The techno craft jobs begin at $5.83 per hour and max out at $13.85 per hour, with an average of $9.69 per hour. the net effect of the $41,000 increase pro about a three percent increase to the administrative- office clerical workers.
Clyde pointed out that a recently conducted job evaluation study had,resulted in the merger of the previously separated job families, such that all jobs were to be evaluated on a common set of attributes were Clyde elaborated further that the impetus of this change was to avoid any litigation over the comparable-worth issue. After completing the budget review briefing, Clyde offered to answer questions. When the council member sat quietly, thanked the council for their time and adjourned meeting.
Bill scurried to the door to intercept the council members as they prepared to leave, hoping to get a few reactions to this surprise comparable-worth initiative by the city government. Bill caught all five of the city council members and the mayor and proceeded to ask them what they thought of Clyde's proposal for the pay adjustments. Mayor Jim Earnie, along with three of the council members, indicated that they did not understand the rationale for the raises. After Bill questioned them, they even agreed that they thought that the issue deserved some further discussion.
"I did not know we were using that standard," councilman Jim Maloney said. "If we're applying comparable worth throughout the system, it would