# The foundation of the bridge



## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

Ok pulling off from the empathy threads, I would love to discuss ways we can bridge some communication gaps between the mens and the wimmins (trying to be cute about it) discussions we love to have so much around here.

I’m not sure where to even start, because the way I have gone about it isn’t probably how others may get there, but I’m thinking maybe at least we can make a foundation together.

One example is the me too discussion. I so wish to be able to gain the support of anyone who can help with this issue, but due to many factors that we simply cannot undo at this point, that platform is now something that feels unsafe for (some) men about consent—assault—rape issues. (I don’t even like the way that looks like a line from one thing to the last. But I am just trying to mention all of the topics that are in the me too discussion. As well as false accusations, which is in the discussion, too).

I am already tip toeing because I don’t even want to discuss the actual issue until we can reframe it. Because otherwise it is this ugly sad round and round thing. I guess, discussing the need to reframe it and how we might do that is where to start?

Here is one little suggestion. Can we talk separately for a bit (might have to be separate threads) about consent issues, in relationships and in dating. And can we leave out the descriptions of anyone who actually is a predator? Consent - if you can look at it the way I do - is a sex positive thing. And there needs to be happy and sexy discussions about consent. If we leave out what’s essentially a separate issue (actual non consent and the people we need to be wary of) and just discuss how fun consent games are, how much self awareness one can gain from playing around with them (if you have a partner to play with, kinda hard when you’re single  ). It can be a really fun and awareness raising discussion, and I think a lot of us have a lot of knowledge about those energies (D/s). We can’t ever seem to get to a nice fun discussion because actual non consent gets brought up every time and then me too and on and on.

So if we concurrently or shortly after also had a respectful thread about consent issues as understood by men, and the new laws being put into place that some of them are worried about, and generally actively listening to their side of that issue.

And then a separate one for the me too side? But we are going to rename that discussion. Please offer suggestions.

I was thinking We Too? Because it implies men too, and just basically ALL of us, and “us” is basically anyone who has been victimized by another and deserves justice. But also, it’s too close to the original and we probably need a fresher description of the conversation. 

That’s my shot at getting this started. Help me, anyone who has suggestions. It’s not clear how to get “there”, but we are trying, yeah?


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

Also domestic violence. I’d love to start a new discussion about domestic violence that doesn’t frame men as the guilty ones. I do feel that statistics can show us a lot of different numbers (which we could present for discussion) but to me the bottom line is this: some people are dangerous ****ing criminals. We should all be more protected from anyone who is harmful to us and that includes a **** ton of women. 

If we could instead focus on dangerous people and DV as if it is just as devastating to all of us when it happens, or at least gently discuss why it is important that laws change and protect men and women equally for equal crimes. I do not have stats and knowledge about this topic nor personal experience but I have worked in family law, and have had people close to me with DV issues. I think men are getting screwed in this way, but aren’t I helpless to change anything? That’s usually how I feel. Maybe men have suggestions for how women can help change the narrative?


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## tech-novelist (May 15, 2014)

Of course it is your initiative and decision as to how to proceed, but I think perhaps it would be a good idea to pick just one of these complex issues to discuss on each thread. It's hard enough to keep people on track when there is a very specific issue and I think it would be even harder with multiple issues.


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

tech-novelist said:


> Of course it is your initiative and decision as to how to proceed, but I think perhaps it would be a good idea to pick just one of these complex issues to discuss on each thread. It's hard enough to keep people on track when there is a very specific issue and I think it would be even harder with multiple issues.


Yes, can you or anyone give suggestions on an easier one? Just somewhere to start. Maybe the pay gap? But I could be wrong, as I don’t have very much invested in that topic, so to me it seems to be an easier one. 

One reason I like the pay gap discussion is because as an employer, there are actual pay gaps that happen all the time which are nothing to do with male-female, they are actually just lazy workplace practices and lack of enforcing current laws. 

Eh?

Suggestions?


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## Rocky Mountain Yeti (Apr 23, 2017)

Faithful Wife said:


> Yes, can you or anyone give suggestions on an easier one? Just somewhere to start. Maybe the pay gap? But I could be wrong, as I don’t have very much invested in that topic, so to me it seems to be an easier one.
> 
> One reason I like the pay gap discussion is because as an employer, there are actual pay gaps that happen all the time which are nothing to do with male-female, they are actually just lazy workplace practices and lack of enforcing current laws.
> 
> ...


My recollection is that we had a rather exhaustive discussion of pay gap on another thread a few months ago and rather than moving toward common ground, everyone just became more entrenched.


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## tech-novelist (May 15, 2014)

Faithful Wife said:


> Yes, can you or anyone give suggestions on an easier one? Just somewhere to start. Maybe the pay gap? But I could be wrong, as I don’t have very much invested in that topic, so to me it seems to be an easier one.
> 
> One reason I like the pay gap discussion is because as an employer, there are actual pay gaps that happen all the time which are nothing to do with male-female, they are actually just lazy workplace practices and lack of enforcing current laws.
> 
> ...


Sure, the pay gap is a good one because it is basically just math.

That is, let's suppose the following:

1. I'm an employer who doesn't give a damn about whether an employee is a man or a woman; I just want to make the maximum amount of profit.
2. I could hire a man for 100% of the "going rate", or a woman for 77% of the going rate.
3. Men and women produce identical products or services.

In this case, I would have to be insane not to hire women exclusively, as I would make a fortune.

Ok, now let's say most employers *are *insane and just hate hiring women, so they won't hire women at 77% but would rather pay a man 100% of the going rate.

In that case, if just a few employers hire women at 77% instead of men at 100%, they will make a fortune, cut their prices, expand their business, and destroy their competition.

At some point the other employers will be out of business or will start hiring women preferentially, thus driving up their wages. In either case, women's wages will approach men's wages due to inexorable economic pressure.

Can *every *employer be insane in this way? Remember, that would have to include female employers. Is that even remotely possible?

(Note that this same argument applies to every possible type of discrimination that is not based on ability to produce, or to pay for goods or services if considering consumers. That's why Southern states had "Jim Crow" laws to prohibit businesses from serving both black and white customers; businesses didn't want to turn away business.)

Ok, so if this is true, why is there a "pay gap"?

Because men and women, on the average, have different rates of production and/or different expenses as employees. On average, women take more time off, are less willing to take hazardous jobs, and are less willing to work overtime. 

Here's just one study from Harvard (https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/bolotnyy/files/be_gendergap.pdf) in which literally *every * consideration by which pay was determined was identical between male and female employees, yet women made only $0.89 for each $1 that men made. The reason was that they took more unpaid hours off and worked less overtime.


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

Ok Tech. That’s an amazing argument. I can’t really say much, but I’m totally down with understanding numbers, like what you’ve presented with the study. I honestly don’t study this issue from a man-woman group, I only know it as an employer.

The employment laws are heavily leaned toward “the employee” in my state. That doesn’t really mean any groups or classes of people anymore. It can be an individual’s rights, and he or she may not belong to any protected class. The law is simple: as the employer, you need to decide what the wage or salary range is for each of the jobs in your company. You can be pretty wide in your determination of what that range will pay, but you have to have it decided how much that job is “worth” to you as an employer. And that means the job is worth that much, not the person is worth that much.

You can add to an employee’s salary (within your specified range) for things like more education and more experience and length of time they have worked for you, but these increments need to be already decided as to how much they can be for which extra skill or education, etc.

The point is that this then creates jobs that are worth what they are worth and there is no paying people more or less just because you like them more or less (which is actually how most employers discriminate).

Sadly, the majority if employers don’t follow all the guidelines and have all of their job descriptions and salary ranges chosen and documented. 

But that’s on them then if they are paying 2 people different wages for the same job for no objective reason. The employer would also be in trouble for paying a woman more than a man for the same job if she had no additional qualifications.


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

Rocky Mountain Yeti said:


> My recollection is that we had a rather exhaustive discussion of pay gap on another thread a few months ago and rather than moving toward common ground, everyone just became more entrenched.


Can we try again? Or......is there a better way to start this off? I would like to find a way to discuss things that we normally get all hung up on, in a way where we can hear each other better.

Like maybe you can describe to me, is there a main thing that sticks in your craw about the pay gap issue? (I don’t honestly know if you even have a strong opinion one way or the other, I usually stay out of that particular discussion).


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

OK I think I have a good easy topic! Though I’m still open to the pay gap topic, as well.

Crying. I’d like to explore @uhtred example of the female colleague crying in his office. 

Can we discuss this. I mean, I’m confused in my own feelings. As an employer I would totally (appear to be) empathetic to any employee crying in my office. I may or may not actually be empathetic, that’s not really my job. But to be calm and kind and actively listen is my job. The employee would definitely think I was empathetic though. 

It has never happened with a guy, but I have had female co workers who have cried in my office. Sometimes I’m literally just getting worked over by a hysterical person who has no emotional control. That isn’t common, but when it has happened it looked also like a mental health issue. So it is handled very delicately and tactfully. 

If a guy was crying I would assume someone died or is about to die. If a woman was crying I would assume it’s aboit a guy or it’s about her co workers.

And plenty of women who have cried in my presence at my job over the years were crying for totally legit reasons.

But...then I ask myself, would it be legit for a man too? Of course it would. Will that ever happen. Probably not. 

Would I want it to....

I don’t know how to answer that. I’m confused. If it were up to me, no women would cry in my office either. 

I’m not saying that happens very often. But I’ve been “the lady you talk to” in an office somewhere for a long time, so I mean over the years I have seen a few.

One gal I worked with was a lacking empathy type (in general) which she was beginning to become aware of while I knew her. She had never cried, not even when she had to clean up the body of her fathers suicide. Nor after at the funeral which she and her 18 year old brother had to put together alone and which no one was present at except them. Nor in all the years after when she had gone through a lot of sad relationship stuff. Tears just weren’t in her emotional wheel house. And empathy in general was almost totally lacking. 

One day, some really bad **** happened to her which she found out about at work, and I thought for sure she would shed a tear at least. She didn’t though. All of her body language said she was crying. The look on her face. Her slumped posture. Her eyes looked almost on the brink...but she didn’t. 

I felt sooooo bad for this girl in this moment. She literally couldn’t cry. She didn’t have empathy because no one had shown her any. She didn’t have the ability to bring forth powerful emotions that can cleanse you. You could see it wanted to come out of her. But it had no outlet.

I have felt similar things about men. Not necessarily at work but men wouldn’t share with me at that level at work.

Thoughts?


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## Laurentium (May 21, 2017)

Faithful Wife said:


> discuss how fun consent games are, how much self awareness one can gain from playing around with them (if you have a partner to play with, kinda hard when you’re single  ). It can be a really fun and awareness raising discussion


Just to say Emily Nagoski (the feminist sex educator) wrote a novel attemting to illustrate how fun consent can be. It's called "how not to fall", and written under the name of Emily Foster (to keep it separate from her professional work I guess?) 

books ? Emily Nagoski, Ph.D. under "books"


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## Laurentium (May 21, 2017)

Faithful Wife said:


> OK I think I have a good easy topic!


Lol! 



> Sometimes I’m literally just getting worked over by a hysterical person who has no emotional control.


That's an interesting phrase. To me, "worked over" implies a deliberate act, the opposite of "no control".


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## EllisRedding (Apr 10, 2015)

I personally would skip the pay gap discussion. Aside from what @tech-novelist stated, there is plenty of logical research that shows the pay gap does not exist (or it is a dramatically smaller gap vs the whole 77 cents nonsense). I honestly think it just gets brought up now in social media simply b/c it can be a divisive topic which gets more views (perfect example, a few outlets were trying to drum up controversy over the "pay gap" b/c The Rock was getting paid significantly more than Emily Blunt in the movie they are doing together ...).

I think the crying topic is a good one to start on. IMO (and I am not the most empathetic person), unless you get some dramatic family related news at work or possibly unexpectedly laid off, there is zero reason why you should ever cry at work (male or female). A good example, one of my workers got news while at work that his dad unexpectedly passed away. You could tell he was shaken, was teary eyed, but held it together long enough before he left. If he had broken out crying, I could totally understand. On the other side, while I was out on jury duty there were some issues at work where eventually our president who was helping to cover while I was out went off on one of my guys (rightly so). Next morning I drove in to work before jury duty and spoke with the guy (young, early - mid 20s). Aside from the whole "I have never been disrespected and spoken that way to" I could see as he was talking to me his eyes were starting to water up. Honestly, if it went beyond that and he started crying I would have told him to get the f out of my office. 

Personal emergency, cry at work, fine. Outside at that, pull yourself together, and if you can't, go sit in your car until you can.


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## NobodySpecial (Nov 22, 2013)

Faithful Wife said:


> Ok pulling off from the empathy threads, I would love to discuss ways we can bridge some communication gaps between the mens and the wimmins (trying to be cute about it) discussions we love to have so much around here.
> 
> I’m not sure where to even start, because the way I have gone about it isn’t probably how others may get there, but I’m thinking maybe at least we can make a foundation together.
> 
> ...


I am not going to participate in this thread beyond saying that I am not. Good luck! I hope you get what yuo need!


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## Ragnar Ragnasson (Mar 4, 2018)

From the title, my very first thought was:

Who wants to talk about how the Led Zeppelin song The Crunge came to be?
(as in "where's the confounded bridge" line).

PS I was just listening to Robert Plant.

Sorry for the OT side note. 😁😁😁


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## Ragnar Ragnasson (Mar 4, 2018)

FW, what's the direction;

crying, emotional topic, or consent topic, or ?

All good choices.


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## personofinterest (Apr 6, 2018)

I could be wrong, but I think many men would be MORE open to the topic of consent if their concerns about false allegations weren't dismissed, or if the implication was NOT that a few innocent men are acceptable collateral damage.. I think that is why a number of men and some women (like me) got really frustrated with an earlier consent thread. The attitude that came through was:

A. Oh please, that hardly ever happens
B. Pfffttthh....losing your scholarship, being expelled, and having it in the media and on the internet forever is really no big deal. Quit whining
c. There are so few of these cases, you just need to take one for the team
D. They were probably actually at least mentally guilty anyway, because men
E. Men have been predators for centuries. False allegations are your reparation for the past

So if women want to seriously discuss consent, then they cannot dismiss the reality of false allegations or "morning after" regret that results in rewritten history.


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## Rocky Mountain Yeti (Apr 23, 2017)

Faithful Wife said:


> Can we try again? Or......is there a better way to start this off? I would like to find a way to discuss things that we normally get all hung up on, in a way where we can hear each other better.
> 
> Like maybe you can describe to me, is there a main thing that sticks in your craw about the pay gap issue? (I don’t honestly know if you even have a strong opinion one way or the other, I usually stay out of that particular discussion).


My distaste for the topic is simple: that there is a large number of people (both women and men) who absolutely refuse to accept even the possibility that *any* part of the pay gap may be due to either inherent differences or the decisions people make and that ther

To be clear, this is all based on looking at the gap in the aggregate. In the aggregate, people make decisions that often have an inherent gender component to them. That has nothing to do with any individual however, and I'll be the first to cry foul and demand redress in any individual case where a woman is held back on account of her gender. But that seems to count for naught with the blindly aggregate outcome focused fanatics.


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

personofinterest said:


> I could be wrong, but I think many men would be MORE open to the topic of consent if their concerns about false allegations weren't dismissed, or if the implication was NOT that a few innocent men are acceptable collateral damage.. I think that is why a number of men and some women (like me) got really frustrated with an earlier consent thread. The attitude that came through was:
> 
> A. Oh please, that hardly ever happens
> B. Pfffttthh....losing your scholarship, being expelled, and having it in the media and on the internet forever is really no big deal. Quit whining
> ...


I would like to talk about this, but I think we would have to break it down a bit further and do it on another thread.


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## anonmd (Oct 23, 2014)

The whole woke-scold trend on social media and the left is A. toxic and B. makes discussion and understanding impossible.


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## personofinterest (Apr 6, 2018)

I think it is extremely difficult to enter these types of discussion without bringing along our own bias and terminology. And because we have learned (or maybe built in) defense mechanisms to other biases and terminology, we either need a very thick thesaurus, or we have to just determine that we will look past the terminology to get to what is actually being said.

And that is really hard. I think of the term "white male." Some people use it as a mere descriptor of race and gender. However, there is a somewhat louder segment who have sort of co-opted the term to mean something negative. So a lot of the white men I know have to work very hard not to get their defenses up when they read the term.

For me, terms like toxic masculinity feel different depending on whether my daughter uses it or the woman below uses it


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

I think pay gap is a really interesting topic. Its interesting because its easy to say "pay equality" but its not at all clear what that means:

It could mean that average male income is the same as average female income
I could mean that for the same job description
It could mean that for the same job performance
It could mean that for the same job performance and work experience
.......
It could mean that for the same work history.

For example, lets postulate that in the past there was gender discrimination in jobs: that a man and a woman with identical skills would not make the same income, or be promoted at the same rate. Now imagine that we completely eliminate discrimination (by magic). If an employer is hiring one or the other, they will see a woman who has had less high level work experience and who is paid less. This means that the effects discrimination can carry on for a very long time after the discrimination has stopped. 

As was posted before, in an ideal economic situation, there would be no discrimination because companies would hire the best people. For jobs where there is a clear measure of performance I think that is correct. For many jobs though, there is no easy way to measure performance - so managers have to rely on their qualitative opinions of employees performance. 

As an example of how this works - there is a lot of evidence that taller men earn more money that short men (at jobs that don't depend on physical capability). I think very few people actively discriminate in favor of height, yet somehow their monkey-brains still tell them that the taller monkey should be paid more. Its easy to see how monkey-brain reactions to male vs female could do the same thing, with no conscious discrimination.


I face this a lot in my job. I have to review, and compensate my employees, 2 women, 4 men at the moment. All high level professionals. All doing different work. Its incredibly difficult to be unbiased, despite what I will claim is an honest attempt. One of the women's performance is mediocre and upper management has been pressuring me to fire her. But is she really that far below average, or are others (or I) more critical because she is female? Or am I *less* critical because she is female? 

These are ... research engineers for lack of a better term. They work on difficult, high risk projects, so it not at all surprising if projects are delayed or fail. So how to judge? 

There are of course cases of overt discrimination against women and I think every effort should be made to stop that. The unconscious bias is a much trickier problem.


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

Showing emotions:
This is a tricky one because society has such deeply ingrained beliefs about how men and women are supposed to show emotions. Having a woman cry in your office because the work stress is too much is not that unusual. Having a man do it is almost unheard of. So a man who did do that would likely be viewed very negatively - even without any attempt to do so.

Should this be fixed? Can it be fixed with such deep societal programming? Is "protecting" women as natural a part of male response as as is sexual arousal at seeing an attractive woman? (for straight men) 

Hmm - interesting question: do gay men feel the same programming to protect women, or is that tied to sexual appeal? (any gay men here want to comment?)


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## tech-novelist (May 15, 2014)

Faithful Wife said:


> Ok Tech. That’s an amazing argument. I can’t really say much, but I’m totally down with understanding numbers, like what you’ve presented with the study. I honestly don’t study this issue from a man-woman group, I only know it as an employer.


Thanks.



Faithful Wife said:


> The employment laws are heavily leaned toward “the employee” in my state. That doesn’t really mean any groups or classes of people anymore. It can be an individual’s rights, and he or she may not belong to any protected class. The law is simple: as the employer, you need to decide what the wage or salary range is for each of the jobs in your company. You can be pretty wide in your determination of what that range will pay, but you have to have it decided how much that job is “worth” to you as an employer. And that means the job is worth that much, not the person is worth that much.
> 
> You can add to an employee’s salary (within your specified range) for things like more education and more experience and length of time they have worked for you, but these increments need to be already decided as to how much they can be for which extra skill or education, etc.
> 
> ...


If I were going to start a business and could choose what state to set it up in, I would avoid a state with laws like that.

This is not because I'm prejudiced or want to mistreat people.

It's because at best this is a big paperwork burden, and at worst a regulatory nightmare.

From an employee's point of view, I live in Texas, which is an "at-will employment" state.

Employers here have used that ability to fire me without notice or explanation, but that wasn't a big issue because I've taken on the responsibility of providing for my own security (via savings) rather than relying on an employer.


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

tech-novelist said:


> Thanks.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


We are also an "at will" state. And there is no big paperwork or regulatory nightmare for me, as an employer. It isn't like a bunch of inspectors come in to make sure you're all documented. That only happens if you are audited.

It is actually quite difficult for an employee to win a discrimination or wrongful termination case against an employer because of at will. Basically it only goes against the employer when there really was discrimination.

Do you trust our laws and processes? I mean, generally speaking. I am all for government working the way it is supposed to, and as far as I am concerned, that is what is what I see in the case of employment law, as an employer and also as an employee. Don't we have laws and regulations because we want that because it is part of the benefits of being American? Unlike family law and DV cases, employment law can be very fair and what I see of it is fair. There are very few cases won by employees against employers, even though our state is heavily on the employee's side. That's because the guidelines the employers use usually prevent actual discrimination.


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## tech-novelist (May 15, 2014)

Faithful Wife said:


> We are also an "at will" state. And there is no big paperwork or regulatory nightmare for me, as an employer. It isn't like a bunch of inspectors come in to make sure you're all documented. That only happens if you are audited.


But the paperwork burden to document everything just in case you are inspected must be significant.



Faithful Wife said:


> It is actually quite difficult for an employee to win a discrimination or wrongful termination case against an employer because of at will. Basically it only goes against the employer when there really was discrimination.


But again it is a burden that raises the cost of doing business. Litigation is extremely expensive and businesses will do what they have to do to avoid it but that doesn't mean it doesn't cost a lot to avoid it as well.



Faithful Wife said:


> Do you trust our laws and processes? I mean, generally speaking. I am all for government working the way it is supposed to, and as far as I am concerned, that is what is what I see in the case of employment law, as an employer and also as an employee. Don't we have laws and regulations because we want that because it is part of the benefits of being American? Unlike family law and DV cases, employment law can be very fair and what I see of it is fair. There are very few cases won by employees against employers, even though our state is heavily on the employee's side. That's because the guidelines the employers use usually prevent actual discrimination.


I'm an anarchist, so no, I don't in general trust the government as far as I can throw it.

In the case of employment law in particular, did you know why in the last 50 years it has become impossible to get virtually any white collar job without a college diploma?

It is because the government, in effect, forbade employers to use IQ tests to determine who they wanted to hire, so they have been forced to use a college diploma as a very expensive surrogate for a very inexpensive test. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.

This excess demand for college diplomas as a means of demonstrating intelligence has inflated the cost of college beyond any reasonable level and in so doing, contributed greatly to the student loan crisis.

My position is that employers should be free to set any criteria whatsoever for whom they wish to hire, just as job applicants should be free to set any criteria whatsoever for what companies they would be willing to work for. Employers who use inappropriate criteria that do not affect performance on the job, e.g., hiring only redheads, will be penalized in the market by having to pay more or get lower performance.


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

tech-novelist said:


> But the paperwork burden to document everything just in case you are inspected must be significant.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I guess I don't know how to even consider the topic if I don't consider the law. The law is the topic. It is not true that we can just hire whoever we "want", we have to not discriminate. That is the law and I have assumed that most people at least agree on the basic ideas of our laws and justice sytstem, even if they are flawed?

If the law is something you'd rather not have in place, then I guess I don't know how to discuss the rest of it.

Also, no there is no insane amount of paperwork I have to deal with. And we have been in biz for over 30 years with zero law suits brought by employees. As for other employers and possible law suits against them, if they lost the suit there is most likely a very clear amount of evidence that discrimination occurred, but in many cases there was also simply some kind of blunder and the discrimination was not deliberate. If it happened, it doesn't matter if it wasn't deliberate. If it didn't happen, the case will never see a courtroom because attorneys don't take cases they aren't fairly sure of winning.


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

tech-novelist said:


> My position is that employers should be free to set any criteria whatsoever for whom they wish to hire, just as job applicants should be free to set any criteria whatsoever for what companies they would be willing to work for. Employers who use inappropriate criteria that do not affect performance on the job, e.g., hiring only redheads, will be penalized in the market by having to pay more or get lower performance.


What about employee safety? From an anarchist view, employers wouldn't have to worry about employee safety? Just let them fall off the scaffold and die, replace them with someone who has more balance tomorrow? OSHA? I'm all for discussing how we could look through the anarchist lens, but it isn't just one type of law that is affecting employment and hiring practices.


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## anonmd (Oct 23, 2014)

Faithful Wife said:


> I guess I don't know how to even consider the topic if I don't consider the law. The law is the topic. It is not true that we can just hire whoever we "want", we have to not discriminate. That is the law and I have assumed that most people at least agree on the basic ideas of our laws and justice sytstem, even if they are flawed?
> 
> If the law is something you'd rather not have in place, then I guess I don't know how to discuss the rest of it.
> 
> Also, no there is no insane amount of paperwork I have to deal with. And we have been in biz for over 30 years with zero law suits brought by employees. As for other employers and possible law suits against them, if they lost the suit there is most likely a very clear amount of evidence that discrimination occurred, but in many cases there was also simply some kind of blunder and the discrimination was not deliberate. If it happened, it doesn't matter if it wasn't deliberate. *If it didn't happen, the case will never see a courtroom because attorneys don't take cases they aren't fairly sure of winning.*


Hmm, not sure about that. I've seen plenty of settlements where the only dollars changing hands is a low 5 figure amount mailed to the lawyer to cover his fees.


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## tech-novelist (May 15, 2014)

Faithful Wife said:


> What about employee safety? From an anarchist view, employers wouldn't have to worry about employee safety? Just let them fall off the scaffold and die, replace them with someone who has more balance tomorrow? OSHA? I'm all for discussing how we could look through the anarchist lens, but it isn't just one type of law that is affecting employment and hiring practices.


Employers would have to worry about employee safety at least as much as they do now, because their liability insurers would make sure of that. There are many ways that the insurers could ride herd on them, including by paying for whistleblowers to tell them about unsafe practices that could cost them a lot of money

They would also have to worry about public opinion at least as much as they do now. It might be hard to find replacement workers if they were careless.

And as for OSHA itself, it has been very good at making lots of regulations and tying businesses up in knots with them. Maybe it wouldn't be as horrid if they were the only regulators, but of course they aren't. In some cases, one regulator tells the business to do something, then another regulator tells them they can't do that. There is no coordination that prevents this, as there would be in a wholly private system where wasting taxpayer money wouldn't be an option.

In such a system, no one would be able to raise a legal defense that they followed all of the regulations, as they often can now.

In fact, no good employer does that now. Would you mistreat your employees if you didn't have to worry about government intrusion? I doubt it very much.


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

anonmd said:


> Hmm, not sure about that. I've seen plenty of settlements where the only dollars changing hands is a low 5 figure amount mailed to the lawyer to cover his fees.


A settlement never sees a courtroom (unless challenged later).


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## Mr. Nail (Apr 26, 2011)

You want to talk about OSHA on a thread with Bridge in the title?

In my industry access to prime jobs is the gripe, not pay gaps. The trouble being that my industry is littered with small family owned companies. If you really want to get that prime job, you often have to entrepreneur your own. There should be more female entrepreneurs in construction.


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## tech-novelist (May 15, 2014)

Faithful Wife said:


> I guess I don't know how to even consider the topic if I don't consider the law. The law is the topic. It is not true that we can just hire whoever we "want", we have to not discriminate. That is the law and I have assumed that most people at least agree on the basic ideas of our laws and justice sytstem, even if they are flawed?
> 
> If the law is something you'd rather not have in place, then I guess I don't know how to discuss the rest of it.
> 
> Also, no there is no insane amount of paperwork I have to deal with. And we have been in biz for over 30 years with zero law suits brought by employees. As for other employers and possible law suits against them, if they lost the suit there is most likely a very clear amount of evidence that discrimination occurred, but in many cases there was also simply some kind of blunder and the discrimination was not deliberate. If it happened, it doesn't matter if it wasn't deliberate. If it didn't happen, the case will never see a courtroom because attorneys don't take cases they aren't fairly sure of winning.


This is obviously way off-topic at this point, although if you want to know how a truly private system could work, I can recommend some reading material.


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

tech-novelist said:


> Employers would have to worry about employee safety at least as much as they do now, because their liability insurers would make sure of that. There are many ways that the insurers could ride herd on them, including by paying for whistleblowers to tell them about unsafe practices that could cost them a lot of money
> 
> They would also have to worry about public opinion at least as much as they do now. It might be hard to find replacement workers if they were careless.
> 
> ...


I can see how this would work. But not here, not now (as you know).

I don’t quite see the negative angle that you do about the laws and regulations. But if a truly market driven world were tested out, I’m sure we would be able to see which companies would thrive and which would die, based on actual market choices. 

I don’t know that it would swing the way you are describing though. It has been shown in quite a few ways that if there are not laws, employers have ways of hiding anything that might negatively affect their bottom line based on market choices. I don’t think the employers would be of the mind to treat their employees well just so they wouldn’t lose customers. They would be more likely to hide the facts that the customers don’t like (which they do now).


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## anonmd (Oct 23, 2014)

Faithful Wife said:


> A settlement never sees a courtroom (unless challenged later).



Sure, but it goes against the statement that lawyers do not take cases they can not win. They take them all the time and extract their fees for merit less claims.


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## tech-novelist (May 15, 2014)

Faithful Wife said:


> I can see how this would work. But not here, not now (as you know).
> 
> I don’t quite see the negative angle that you do about the laws and regulations. But if a truly market driven world were tested out, I’m sure we would be able to see which companies would thrive and which would die, based on actual market choices.
> 
> I don’t know that it would swing the way you are describing though. It has been shown in quite a few ways that if there are not laws, employers have ways of hiding anything that might negatively affect their bottom line based on market choices. I don’t think the employers would be of the mind to treat their employees well just so they wouldn’t lose customers. They would be more likely to hide the facts that the customers don’t like (which they do now).


One of the big problems with a Statist system is that big companies in particular can get away with murder, sometimes literally, because they are politically connected. There isn't any incentive on the part of the politicians to apply the law to those companies the way that they do to less-connected companies, and a lot of incentive not to, e.g., the revolving door between government regulatory bodies and the industries they regulate.

Of course the same applies in general, not just to employment law. Some people can violate laws with impunity, whereas others have the book thrown at them. And those who make such corrupt decisions are also insulated from any consequences.

In a truly private system people would have to bear the responsibility for their actions because they would have no one to shift the costs onto.


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

anonmd said:


> Sure, but it goes against the statement that lawyers do not take cases they can not win. They take them all the time and extract their fees for merit less claims.


Touche, and lawyers loves settlements.

I could offer pages full of the types of cases that employees constantly bring to attorneys “help me, I got fired for a discriminatory reason!” Attorney says “can you prove it?” Employee says “yes because everyone there knows the guy just hates me because I’m FITB class of person”. Attorney says “how did they handle the matter?” Employee then describes a perfectly legal at will firing with no proof of discrimination. Attorney says “sorry it is not illegal to fire you just because they didn’t like you. You can try to claim that they didn’t like you because of your class but there’s no proof of this and they handled everything legally so....”

That’s most of the calls an employment attorney takes all day. They are not there to champion for employees. They don’t want to take some precedent setting case just to fight for your rights as a disgruntled employee. Nope, they only want your case if they can get money out of you and they don’t care if you got your job back or what happens. Attorneys are private contractors trying to make a buck where ever they can like everyone else. When it comes to wrongful termination cases, they aren’t ambulance chasing fired employees.


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## personofinterest (Apr 6, 2018)

Faithful Wife said:


> Touche, and lawyers loves settlements.
> 
> I could offer pages full of the types of cases that employees constantly bring to attorneys “help me, I got fired for a discriminatory reason!” Attorney says “can you prove it?” Employee says “yes because everyone there knows the guy just hates me because I’m FITB class of person”. Attorney says “how did they handle the matter?” Employee then describes a perfectly legal at will firing with no proof of discrimination. Attorney says “sorry it is not illegal to fire you just because they didn’t like you. You can try to claim that they didn’t like you because of your class but there’s no proof of this and they handled everything legally so....”
> 
> That’s most of the calls an employment attorney takes all day. They are not there to champion for employees. They don’t want to take some precedent setting case just to fight for your rights as a disgruntled employee. Nope, they only want your case if they can get money out of you and they don’t care if you got your job back or what happens. Attorneys are private contractors trying to make a buck where ever they can like everyone else. When it comes to wrongful termination cases, they aren’t ambulance chasing fired employees.


Exactly, and honestly.....most of the time when people THINK they were unfairly fired.....they probably weren't. Especially those people who are "unfairly fired" from every job they have ever had


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## anonmd (Oct 23, 2014)

Faithful Wife said:


> Touche, and lawyers loves settlements.
> 
> I could offer pages full of the types of cases that employees constantly bring to attorneys “help me, I got fired for a discriminatory reason!” Attorney says “can you prove it?” Employee says “yes because everyone there knows the guy just hates me because I’m FITB class of person”. Attorney says “how did they handle the matter?” Employee then describes a perfectly legal at will firing with no proof of discrimination. Attorney says “sorry it is not illegal to fire you just because they didn’t like you. You can try to claim that they didn’t like you because of your class but there’s no proof of this and they handled everything legally so....”
> 
> That’s most of the calls an employment attorney takes all day. They are not there to champion for employees. They don’t want to take some precedent setting case just to fight for your rights as a disgruntled employee. Nope, they only want your case if they can get money out of you and they don’t care if you got your job back or what happens. Attorneys are private contractors trying to make a buck where ever they can like everyone else. When it comes to wrongful termination cases, they aren’t ambulance chasing fired employees.


I'm thinking back, from personal experience what you say is true. One of my responsibilities is to disclose possible future legal liabilities, there are always a bunch of cases in the process of being resolved and up until the advent of Title IX as implemented by Obama's DOE "Dear Colleague" letter the language was always along the lines of "We have a series of cases, we do not expect any to result in financial consequences that are material in nature. 

Since title IX the final published language hasn't changed, "Management believes the ultimate resolution of the claims will not have a material adverse effect on the College's financial position." However the language that comes from the attorney to the accounting firm is most interesting. Basically, "We believe the college did nothing wrong, there is no here here. However, it is our experience that the office of civil rights ALWAYS finds fault with the institution." 

Anyway, these settlements are starting flow in. The ones involving the complainer are the previously mentioned low 5 figure pay off the lawyer type. So far, the complainer never gets any dollars beyond a very small amount to reimburse some counselling or similar. The male student who was railroaded off campus does a little better. Yet to see a valid case. Try not to take my head off


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

anonmd said:


> Try not to take my head off


Nah, man! This is the bridge. We are having a big party and I'm handing you a joint. You can puff or pass, your choice. No heads shall be taken off on my bridge, it has been so declared. :grin2:


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## anonmd (Oct 23, 2014)

How pleasant, thanks


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

personofinterest said:


> Exactly, and honestly.....most of the time when people THINK they were unfairly fired.....they probably weren't. Especially those people who are "unfairly fired" from every job they have ever had


There are cases about unfair pay, lost wages, back pay, missed OT and other monetary cases. Those are usually pretty easy to suss out and if the employer cannot document their case (say the employer says the employee did not work enough hours to get OT, but they did not keep the time sheets signed by the employee acknowledging how many hours were worked) then the employee gets the pay. They may also get some small amount of interest or damages. But those cases do not turn into huge punitive payouts unless there was some kind of company wide atrocity placed on this singular employee that a judge deems worthy of a payout. That just usually doesn’t happen because the law is not written to say that you get to sue the pants off of your employer just because they missed some OT on your check. Most employers do not deliberately screw their employees and most document things enough to prove what they were paying people for. This is just good business practice anyway. 

So almost all cases where the employee gets their pay, the employer is not found to be willfully withholding pay, it is usually a dispute over what actually happened, or a lack of documentation. If it’s not willful, the employer pays the employee and may get a slap on the wrist from BOLI.

If the employer is found to be willfully under paying people, they will get fined and possibly shut down. Plus all other employees wages will be audited and if you screwed them too, you may be out of biz forever.

If it’s found that the employee can’t prove their case, the case is dismissed.

Cases that have to do with wrongful termination and/or discrimination are a different story. Of these, it is not a slam dunk kind of thing where any employee with the (possibly true) but flimsiest discrimination story can just sue the pants off their employer. I mean, you can try, but the chances are your employer has not done anything that can be shown to be deliberate discrimination. Cases of discrimination that happen in a he said she said situation are handled maturely by the review boards. They truly investigate, and they want the truth, they don’t just want to nail the employer. 

If is it determined that a case really WAS discriminatory, the employer has quite a huge price to pay on many levels. Actual precedent setting cases are rare anymore because basically, employers get it. We aren’t discriminating on a huge level anymore (though it does still happen and many times not reported). We are clear in the understanding that by just following the laws, we are safe against law suits and pay discrepancies. We know how to respond if we are questioned: here are all of our records. We’re clean!

It is more cost effective to pay people fairly and follow the laws and guidelines. 

It’s just easier.


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