Has anyone elses salary been affected by the gender pay gap yet?

Hades said:
Genuine question as I'm clearly not able to picture it. But what do dinner ladies need to do outside for prolonged periods?
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Supervise the children outside, clean, deal with fights, spit, verbal abuse and the rest.

EDIT: I am not saying a dinner ladies job is like 5 hours of a bin men. But on an hourly basis they are similar. Its clear the dinner ladies work shorter shifts.
 
Pottsey said:
They don’t just occasionally go outside to empty a bin; they have long periods outside at a time in all-weather conditions even snow. Not as long as a binmen but enough to be counted as working outside. 2 hour job as a dinner lady is very similar to 2 hour job as a bin men.

Moving enough tables and chairs in a short timeframe is hard work. A stack of chairs is very similar if not more weight than a bin. Have you ever tried moving a large hull’s worth of chairs and tables within a set timeframe? Is basic manual labour just like moving a bin onto a lift.

The sheer volume of kids means there is a constant stream of different children with problems. Children spit, wee and be sick. Binmen don’t have to put up with lots of verbal abuse and spit.



The sheer volume of kids means there is a constant stream of different children with problems
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Jesus LOL, where do these dinner ladies work that they spend their entire shift being spat at, verbally abused and lifting chairs for 2 hours? Is this some sort of alternative reality? The one's I had at school stood around smiling and chatting, they did a bit of kitchen work and made sure kids were behaving, if anything kicked off they'd call a deputy head teacher. If someone swore at them they'd be suspended or put in isolation/detention, if someone spat at them (it never happened) I would guess they'd be looking at a permanent exclusion.
 
Roar87 said:
Jesus LOL, where do these dinner ladies work that they spend their entire shift being spat at, verbally abused and lifting chairs for 2 hours? Is this some sort of alternative reality? The one's I had at school stood around smiling and chatting, they did a bit of kitchen work and made sure kids were behaving, if anything kicked off they'd call a deputy head teacher. If someone swore at them they'd be suspended or put in isolation/detention, if someone spat at them (it never happened) I would guess they'd be looking at a permanent exclusion.
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It depends on your location. Try looking at an inner city school or one with SEN students. Permanent exclusion over a spit your having a laugh right? Staff have a duty of care which means sometimes you cannot just run to get the deputy head. You have to step in.

A small school in the county side is massively different to a large city school with 1000+ students.
 
Pottsey said:
Supervise the children outside, clean, deal with fights, spit, verbal abuse and the rest.

EDIT: I am not saying a dinner ladies job is like 5 hours of a bin men. But on an hourly basis they are similar. Its clear the dinner ladies work shorter shifts.
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That isn't the role of a dinner lady. That's the role of a teacher. According to this (which admittedly I had to Google for - it was the first hit) they supervise children during school meals while in the dining area.

Or do schools now have barbeques outside at mealtime during the winter?

https://careertrend.com/info-8618319-duties-school-dinner-lady.html

School dinner ladies (also known as School Meal Supervisory Assistants) are those who supervise the activities of children during mealtime. Dinner ladies assist the children in the dining area, supervise the kitchen work, and keep an eye on the younger children to make sure that they are eating their lunch.
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Pottsey said:
It depends on your location. Try looking at an inner city school or one with SEN students. Permanent exclusion over a spit your having a laugh right? Staff have a duty of care which means sometimes you cannot just run to get the deputy head. You have to step in.

A small school in the county side is massively different to a large city school with 1000+ students.
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My school had 1200 students, it wasn't a picnic of a school, people no doubt swore occasionally at dinner ladies but spitting at them is assault, I'm pretty sure most schools would exclude on that basis and it cannot be a regular thing. The schools you're describing sound worse than prison.
 
The argument of dinner ladies picking up chairs and tables each day, putting them away and the following day putting them back out again seems pretty inefficient. Equally with dinner ladies being sworn and spit at I'm sure they have a lot more control over that sort of thing than bin men who probably get the same if not worse from argumentative people blaming the council for things. Then there's the fact that seems to be being ignored, holidays, binmen probably get the minimum 28 days holiday compared to the 13 or so paid weeks that dinner ladies will get. How long is the shift of a binman compared to a dinner lady? at a guess it would be a maximum of 6 hours for a dinner lady - probably doesn't even need to be that much, binmen probably do 7-8 hour days outside the entirety of their shift in all weathers. The two jobs are impossible to compare, and I don't see why women can't apply for the job of refuse collection, and likewise men could apply for the job of dinner person.
 
Hades said:
That isn't the role of a dinner lady. That's the role of a teacher. According to this (which admittedly I had to Google for - it was the first hit) they supervise children during school meals while in the dining area.

School dinner ladies (also known as School Meal Supervisory Assistants) are those who supervise the activities of children during mealtime. Dinner ladies assist the children in the dining area, supervise the kitchen work, and keep an eye on the younger children to make sure that they are eating their lunch.
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https://careertrend.com/info-8618319-duties-school-dinner-lady.html
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Yup, that sounds more like what I'd thought a "dinner lady" was rather than some of the descriptions Pottsey has thrown in - according to that basic cooking skills are a requirement and their job is in the dining hall/kitchen... which is basically what it was when I was a school kid. Teachers supervised the playground.

While I'm sure they do sometimes deal with truly kids and have to clean up sick occasionally it isn't exactly going to be an every day occurrence for them in most schools, even if there is a sick kid every day (they've got a team).

Jokester said:
The only question that really needs to be asked is how hard is it to recruit and retain people to do these or indeed any job.
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exactly this, the arbitrary comparisons between different jobs are pointless
 
dowie said:
exactly this, the arbitrary comparisons between different jobs are pointless
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It’s not arbitrary or pointless. It’s all about fair and equal pay or as the national framework says “equity - equal pay for work of equal value”



Jamauk said:
The two jobs are impossible to compare
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They are not impossible to compare as all government funded jobs went though the same single status job evaluation process. This directly compares the jobs across 13 different factors and gives a finial job score. This score determines what pay grade the job fall into. This means government funded jobs are directly comparable. Both jobs being talked about had a job evaluation together.
 
Jokester said:
The only question that really needs to be asked is how hard is it to recruit and retain people to do these or indeed any job.
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There's a related question, I think:

If being a "dinner lady" really is exactly on a par with working on the bins in every way (or worse, since some people are claiming that dinner ladies spend most of their time doing heavy manual labour outdoors in all weather while being spat on and cleaning up vomit and urine) and really was being paid much less...why didn't any of the "dinner ladies" apply to work on the bins instead?

The answer, of course, is that in reality "dinner lady" is a much less bad job. Which is why it's easier to recruit and retain people to do the job than it is to recruit and retain people to work on the bins.
 
(answering the title)
Nope, whenever I have hired, the salary is the same if you're a man or woman which is obvious.

I know in my organisation, the pay is the same at the top of the ladder too.
 
Yes my pay is identical to my female business partner who works less hard than me, delivers less profits and does less to run the business.
 
Pottsey said:
It’s not arbitrary or pointless. It’s all about fair and equal pay or as the national framework says “equity - equal pay for work of equal value”
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It's inherently Socialist to try and 'assign' worth in this fashion...

Equal pay for 'equal' work.... According to whom and by what standard?

Socialism has repeatedly tried to work in this fashion with the use of a planned economy where the state assigns the worth of a thing and decides how much of a certain product or service should be generated by whom at what cost....

The results time and time again are failure....

Alternatively you can let the markets decide the 'worth' of a product, service or job (I. E capitalism)


I really don't understand what's so hard if lunchtime supervisors want to have the same pay as bin operatives then they can apply for a role as one.... If they don't want to work as bin operatives due to not liking the different nature of the job then that surely blows any idea that the jobs are' equal' out of the water along with any claim for equality of pay

Jokester said:
The only question that really needs to be asked is how hard is it to recruit and retain people to do these or indeed any job.
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Exactly this....

Angilion said:
why didn't any of the "dinner ladies" apply to work on the bins instead?

The answer, of course, is that in reality "dinner lady" is a much less bad job. Which is why it's easier to recruit and retain people to do the job than it is to recruit and retain people to work on the bins.
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Yep.... Still waiting to hear a cogent argument as to why this isn't the case..... Some arbitrary assessment to try and equate two jobs is pointless and entirely subject to the criteria of the 'assessment'....

The most reliable way to ascertain the 'worth' of a thing has always been and will remain a market where ultimately the test is what price needs to be paid to secure the required good or service from those providing them....

So anyone want to answer the question?....

I. e in the general case if a school lunch time supervisor wants the same pay as a bin operative.... And you suggest their jobs are 'equal' and hence worthy of the same pay why can't the lunch time supervisor just take up a role as a bin operative?
 
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Angilion said:
“(or worse, since some people are claiming that dinner ladies spend most of their time doing heavy manual labour outdoors in all weather while being spat on and cleaning up vomit and urine) and really was being paid much less...why didn't any of the "dinner ladies" apply to work on the bins instead?”
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No one said dinner ladies spend most of the time doing heavy manual labour outdoors in all weather. What was said is when you break down the jobs both have heavy manual labour, both work outside in all weather, both deal with garbage. Both have the same level of required knowledge skills.

The 13 different factors that jobs are scored on to determine pay are very similar between a dinner lady and binman. Clearly the dinner ladies didn’t apply to work on bins as the shift length; start and end are very different. No one is saying the jobs are 100% the same. Only that due to job evaluation they can be compared.



Angilion said:
“The answer, of course, is that in reality "dinner lady" is a much less bad job. Which is why it's easier to recruit and retain people to do the job than it is to recruit and retain people to work on the bins.”
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Are you just making that up or did you look at the recruitment and retention rates for both jobs over different areas?
 
Caracus2k said:
“Equal pay for 'equal' work.... According to whom and by what standard?”
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According to the standard set out in the single status framework job evaluation which has been rolled out across all of England and which all Councils use for all jobs they fund. As for whom I have no idea some sort of body of people looked at every single job and scored them to the same categories. Which in turn means all those jobs can be directly compared for an hourly wage.

For the jobs we are talking about the market cannot decide worth and while you say “The results time and time again are failure....” they do not see it as a failure as there is zero gender pay gaps in council jobs.
 
Pottsey said:
According to the standard set out in the single status framework job evaluation which has been rolled out across all of England and which all Councils use for all jobs they fund. As for whom I have no idea some sort of body of people looked at every single job and scored them to the same categories. Which in turn means all those jobs can be directly compared for an hourly wage.

For the jobs we are talking about the market cannot decide worth and while you say “The results time and time again are failure....” they do not see it as a failure as there is zero gender pay gaps in council jobs.
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You can keep trotting this out but it remains nonsense. It's Socialist claptrap to say that that you can perform some sort of external assessment of a good, service or job to assess its comparable worth.....

I reject the notion that it was a good idea to compelling councils to assess different jobs in this fashion.

Its an attempt at a planned economy... Something that has been shown to repeatedly fail...

The question is simple so I'll repeat it...

If a lunch time school supervisor wants the same pay as a bin operative and you suggest their work is 'of equal' worth what's stopping then lunch time supervisor applying for the bin operatives role?

And if the reply is that they don't want to do the job or apply for it due to not liking the different nature, condition and times worked then that surely blows any claims that the jobs can be assessed as being of equal worth out of the water?

Why exactly can't these jobs pay be decided by a market? You just asserted that without explaining why?

There is a zero gender pay gap?

What by the arbitrary assessment of different jobs?.... It's meaningless waffle

Pottsey said:
The 13 different factors that jobs are scored on to determine pay are very similar between a dinner lady and binman.
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Why is 13 different factors the magic number?

Why not 12,14, 25 of any other number picked at random?

It's arbitrary which ever way you look at it.... I could make up my own 14 point scales for assessing the combarable 'worth' of different jobs and come to completely different values.... Presumably I could also similarly declare that there was a zero gender pay gap (based on an entirely arbitrary assessment and as such useless)
 
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Caracus2k said:
You can keep trotting this out but it remains nonsense. It's Socialist claptrap to say that that you can perform some sort of external asssesnent of a good, service or job to assess its comparable worth.....

Its an attempt at a planned economy... Something that has been shown to repeatedly fail...

The question is simple so I'll repeat it...

If a lunch time school supervisor wants the same pay as a bin operative and you suggest their work is 'of equal' worth what's stopping then lunch time supervisor applying for the bin operative?

And if the reply is that they don't want to do the job or apply for it due to not liking the different nature, condition and times worked then that surely blows any claims that the jobs can be assessed as being of equal worth out of the water?

Why exactly can't these jobs pay be decided by a market? You just asserted that without explaining why?

There is a zero gender pay gap?

What by the arbitrary assessment of different jobs?.... It's meaningless waffle
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Because equal worth doesn't mean the same job?

A packet of biscuits and a bunch of bananas might cost as much but they're obviously not the same.

Councils follow national guidelines on pay structure but can modify it slightly to suit the local market. The result is a pay structure that suits the local economy, but still has a structure to promote equality and simplify planning budgets etc.

There is no gender pay cap as salary is non-negotiable; a man and a woman starting at the same time, with the same job title, in the same local authority department will have had the same starting salary, and same increase in pay based on time in the role.
 
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