Equal Pay? Not in Kansas

[SteelCurtain]

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/06/kansas-t...ifference/

Most places want you to think they can discipline you for discussing your pay, but technically that's illegal. Union laws guarantee workers the right to discuss and compare their pay rates specifically to prevent situations like you're describing. Kansas sounds kinda shitty, so I don't know if they actually have any recourse, but ideally they should be able to get that dude punished for that.

That is against the law. They can no longer fire or punish people for discussing wages. Lawsuit!

Depends on the state. Kansas is a state that has an 'implied contract' exemption in the labor relations portion of their state constitution. It is an at-will state, which means an employer can fire an employee with no reason or recourse whatsoever. Since they gave a reason, if it states implicitly in the employee handbook that employees must not discuss their salaries with other employees, then these kids have no legal recourse, other than to contact the NLRB.

The NLRB can force the company to rehire the kids, and pay them back salary. I hope they do this, but I am not sure of the NLRB's ability to do this with state sovereignty issues at stake.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Corporate rules against discussing wages are horseshit.

I'm no communist, but rules against discussing wages might be the most obvious example of worker exploitation in modern capitalism. Making sure the workers aren't aware that they're being paid unfairly.

Such rules have always offended my sensibilities, even when I was a manager tasked with enforcing them. It'd better be a fat paycheck if they want to buy the speech of an employee.

[Drich]

I don't like my guys discussing wages because they are not compensated the same way. some are commission only (per their request) and the others are hourly plus reduced commission or just hourly.. their jobs and pay are based on skill level, and what they make for the company.

But none of them can see that from just their own pay checks. Meaning there is a very delicate balance between a fair wage and have to let people go or even shutting down the company. they only see the net they take home. so that beggs the question how do you tell a 300 dollar week broom pusher that he is not smart/skilled enough to make what the top guy makes?

If you make me a dollar I am willing to give you .40 cents. But at the same time there are people working who don't generate any money and they can not be paid the same, they are paid out of the other .60 cents the other guy made.

That is why corporations do not want you discussing salary, as rarely can you see the big picture from the bottom line of your pay check.

[vorlon13]

I'm seeing the advantage to my farming operation in being able to coerce, browbeat and shame relatives to work for free.

Interesting topic.

[Crossless2.0]

That is why corporations do not want you discussing salary, as rarely can you see the big picture from the bottom line of your pay check.

But in this case, it was two teenagers with equal experience being hired for the same low-skill position. Do you think a difference in pay was justified? It's not as though the 25-cent/hour difference was arrived at after a probationary period and a review of their performances on the job. The difference was there from the start.

[mlmooney89]

A few years ago I found out that both of my coworkers made $0.25 an hour more than I did. I was infuriated because I had worked there longer than either of them. Turns out the other female got more because she was part time and part time got more since they worked less. The guy got hired after they had upped hiring pay (and neglected to up those already employed) so it made sense but I didn't know any of that at the time and threw a hissy fit. All I got out of it was they both ended up getting fired and now I'm the top tier for my position. I wonder if there is more to this story but it could just be unfair playing.

[drfuzzy]

Yeah, Kansas is so screwed up that if they don't get their act together, they are going to have to close a lot of public schools.  No money - to say that the budget was badly mismanaged is an understatement. 
http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-gove...10602.html


"If lawmakers take no action on school finance by June 30, it would set up a constitutional crisis and could trigger the shutdown of the state’s school districts."

Closing schools! Lawmakers are in a special session now to try to find a solution.  
I was fired from a Kansas State office for being an atheist.  That's legal in Kansas. But of course, they may have done me a favor.  
So a tale of unequal pay . . . eh, that's how the whole state works. Folks in Kansas are generally so conservative that they would ban women from holding jobs if they could.

[Minimalist]

“I think there’ll be a strong push for the Legislature to give one last try to prevent the courts from closing schools,” King said. “Our kids’ education is worth it. I think the majority of the Legislature will agree with that.”

As long as they teach creatardism in science class, that is!

[vorlon13]

When I worked for the defense contractor, the company had an unholy mix of union factory workers, outsourced vendors, salaried office, hourly office, independent contractors, reps from other companies we did business with (all with their own pay arrangements) and government employees whom I assume were all salaried, but may not have been.

I was hourly office and even declined a promotion to a salaried position as those people could work up to 44hrs/week and not get overtime, and there were other OT (negative) differences* if you worked during paid holidays. I did the math and realized the promotion would actually incur a pay cut and I'd still be doing the same work.

So, where I'm going with this, comparing pay rates there was futile as everybody was handled differently. The company also had a about 500 classifications for all the positions and I'd been hard pressed to find someone else with an equivalent classification and seniority. BTW, as an hourly office, seniority counted far less for me than if I'd been hourly office union (no one at our site was that, but the company had a facility in San Diego with union hourly office, and there were probably other sites too) but I think seniority counted more for me than it did the salaried office. AFAIK, everyone had the same vacation accrual rate and health insurance (executive level excluded on both of those categories) but the union had different options on their pension than the rest of us.

*as I recall for instance, I wound up working on Christmas day one year, and received 3x for that day (double time for 1 day + 1 day of holiday), salaried would have been time and a half, after the first 4 hours and those first 4 hours would have been 'free', + one paid vacation day. Additionally, any scheduled day I showed up, I was eligible for 4 hours pay if sent home prior to completing 4 hours due to weather, power failure, scheduling fuck up, etc. but the salaried office didn't get that. There were no hourly office supervisors or managers. I think there were (nonunion) hourly supervisors in the factory area.

I also worked factory floor during a union strike (but didn't make any products, instead I built new test equipment with some field reps that were called in) and received same pay rate for 6 weeks of that as I did before and after in the office. The union did get a raise, but lost a significant number of members, it was their choice, small raise, keep head count, big raise and take a reduction in force, They ALWAYS took the larger raise package with large headcount reductions in the 3 contract renegotiations that happened while I was there. I might not have been very gung ho for the union, but I never felt I was as anti-union as the union hierarchy was.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm seeing the advantage to my farming operation in being able to coerce, browbeat and shame relatives to work for free.

Interesting topic.

Why do you think I had so many kids?  

(hey, what do you produce and what's your model?)