Sexist New York Times Fires Woman For Demanding Equal Pay

[The Man]

I would hope they would keep track of those kinds of things.

ETA--The context of the employer's national insurance contribution total making a one-time appearance on my compensation letter (the bit of paper that is handed to someone in the short meeting when they are told their compensation which is usually once per year) . . . was that it appeared to be an effort to do a little bit of extra grossing-up to make the number look better. Just possibly to compensate for it otherwise missing expectations.

Here in the US every offer and pay I have been given, in the 37 years I've been working, has been in gross dollars (before FICA is taken out). The amount taken out for FICA (among other things) appears in each of my pay statements. Employer payments to my health insurance also appear on my pay statement but are not considered part of my gross pay. I expect the indication of that amount might be for corporate tax reasons (that company expense may not be taxed or taxed less).

 

[The Man]

My point still stands that I'd rather know than not know what it fully costs to keep me employed. Good decisions are made from having accurate information. That sort of information can tell me, if I decided to change employers, what the bottom line to hire me might be and from there I might be able to negotiate a better salary from someone else. What you did might have actually harmed your employment opportunities and limited your negotiations further down the line (again assuming that you made any comment at all about it to your employers). Knowledge is power and they gave it to you on a silver platter. If you smacked the hand that held the platter then you only have yourself to blame. If they withdrew that same platter from everyone because you smacked that hand then you have a bit of apologizing to do to anyone that is stuck because you took opportunity away simply because you felt offended by a rare showing of business honesty.

When I was subcontracting the company I was employed by would get some compensation from the company they contracted with above what I was paid. Knowing how much the contracting company was actually paying to have me do the work was critical in evaluating offers from that company to become a regular employee.

 

[Francesca R]

Here in the US every offer and pay I have been given, in the 37 years I've been working, has been in gross dollars (before FICA is taken out). [ . . . ]

Certainly base salary, bonus, superannuation, equity, options and the like are traditionally communicated between employer and employee in gross currency. That employers' social security contributions are not (in the UK, typically) is merely convention--if the government levied all the contibution on the employee then it would be (and gross pay would probably adjust upwards to at least partly offset such a change as well).

The issue with my example was a situation of a one off departure in the communication of this and the perception of why the typical norm was being departed from (which was an effort to re-frame the total in a more flattering way)

And the context for that: employers could conceivably include all the fixed and variable costs of retaining employees and communicate the message that this was their total compensation. But this probably would not instantly make anyone feel they were better paid.

 

[casebro]

So is anyone up in arms yet that the man that preceded her was compensated ~10% less?

I guess not. Indignation only works one way. A fine display of sexism here at JREF.

 

[The Man]

Certainly base salary, bonus, superannuation, equity, options and the like are traditionally communicated between employer and employee in gross currency. That employers' social security contributions are not (in the UK, typically) is merely convention--if the government levied all the contibution on the employee then it would be (and gross pay would probably adjust upwards to at least partly offset such a change as well).

The issue with my example was a situation of a one off departure in the communication of this and the perception of why the typical norm was being departed from (which was an effort to re-frame the total in a more flattering way)

And the context for that: employers could conceivably include all the fixed and variable costs of retaining employees and communicate the message that this was their total compensation. But this probably would not instantly make anyone feel they were better paid.

I understand the issue and just trying to relate that in the US the FICA contribution does come out of gross pay, so here that is the norm as has been for as long as I've been employed.

Some employers I've had did inform me of the total cost of my employment and that instantly let me know the, well, total cost of my employment, my pay being just one part of that.


ETA:

Last year the FICA amount deducted from my pay went up by basically the amount of my raise, so my net raise for last year was about 5 bucks a month.

 

[Information Analyst]

I'm making some assumptions here so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but if it showed up once and you made a bit of fuss over it they might have decided to not do it again to save themselves some grief from your claims of padding the numbers to up-gross their numbers. Do you think that the compensation went away or that it's not a part of what they pay to your government to keep you lawfully employed? Common sense tells me that of course they still pay out to your national insurance because it's the law.

Believe me, virtually nobody in the UK would regard the employer's element of National Insurance to be part of the individual employee's gross pay. It just doesn't work like that, and any employer trying to do so is pretty obviously up to something.

 

[Francesca R]

A fine display of sexism here at JREF.

Who did that in this thread??

 

[Information Analyst]

I understand the issue and just trying to relate that in the US the FICA contribution does come out of gross pay, so here that is the norm as has been for as long as I've been employed.

With UK National Insurance, the employee's contribution is deducted from their gross salary, and will show on their payslip; the employer's contribution is not and does not respectively.

 

[The Man]

With UK National Insurance, the employee's contribution is deducted from their gross salary, and will show on their payslip; the employer's contribution is not and does not respectively.

As I recall here in the US it is split down the middle so the employee contribution would be the same as the employer contribution. However, if I were offered XYZ dollars in gross pay I would expect XYZ dollars in gross pay regardless of what those contributions were.

 

[newyorkguy]

I can see both sides of this. With employees at their level -- executive editor of the New York Times -- I can see why individual salaries may not be the same. Like in sports, team managers or head coaches are going to have widely differing pay scales, depending on their experience, their track record. And also depending on who they are, their relative amount of star power.

In the first place, why would the Times pay Jill Abramson the same salary Bill Keller got? Keller was executive editor of the Times for eight years. He was often credited with helping to "save" the Times during a period where the survival of the paper -- any newspaper in fact -- seemed in question. On the other hand, Jill Abramson is supposed to be a quality person, so if she feels she was being treated unfairly I'm sure she has a good case.

Fwiw, I knew someone who worked in the Times newsroom. She was a journalist and she loved her job. But she said the Times newsroom was a very competitive place with a lot of politics. There were a lot of very prominent journalists with big salaries, egos to match, and there was a lot of infighting.

 

[The Man]

I can see both sides of this. With employees at their level -- executive editor of the New York Times -- I can see why individual salaries may not be the same. Like in sports, team managers or head coaches are going to have widely differing pay scales, depending on their experience, their track record. And also depending on who they are, their relative amount of star power.

In the first place, why would the Times pay Jill Abramson the same salary Bill Keller got? Keller was executive editor of the Times for eight years. He was often credited with helping to "save" the Times during a period where the survival of the paper -- any newspaper in fact -- seemed in question. On the other hand, Jill Abramson is supposed to be a quality person, so if she feels she was being treated unfairly I'm sure she has a good case.

Fwiw, I knew someone who worked in the Times newsroom. She was a journalist and she loved her job. But she said the Times newsroom was a very competitive place with a lot of politics. There were a lot of very prominent journalists with big salaries, egos to match, and there was a lot of infighting.

Also I think that they did up her salary when she pressed indicates that they did value her capabilities and potential (at least at first).

 

[Francesca R]

With employees at their level -- executive editor of the New York Times -- I can see why individual salaries may not be the same.

It is extremely hard to show unfair practice at that level, particularly unfair to the point of flouting employment law. These things are probably much more about how much public damage ("shaming", unwelcome publicity) one can cause to another party (net of the damage any actions inflict on oneself), in order to get one's preferred outcome.

I bet it would be impossible to objectively prove sexism in this case, meaning to isolate it from all the other behaviours going on.

 

[Mudcat]

Why is it suddenly an argument of merit when the executive in question happens to be female?

It isn't.

It just goes to show the amazing amount of double standard that seems to permeate feminism these days.

I think this meme about covers it.

 

[quadraginta]

It isn't.

It just goes to show the amazing amount of double standard that seems to permeate feminism these days.

Whoosh!

I think this meme about covers it.

Linky no worky.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I guess not. Indignation only works one way. A fine display of sexism here at JREF.

If a white guy gets paid less than a non-white guy nobody cries racism. This could be because of irrational prejudice, or it might be a well-founded, evidence-based prior belief that it's really improbable that racism is the issue there because systematic discrimination against white people mostly only happens in the delusional imaginations of Stormfront sympathisers.

I think the same applies to a man getting paid less than a woman. It might be because the lesbian feminazi conspiracy has taken over and that whole pesky evidence-based pay gap thing is a lie, but it's a lot more probable there is another reason for the pay difference other than their sexes.

 

[Kahalachan]

If a white guy gets paid less than a non-white guy nobody cries racism. This could be because of irrational prejudice, or it might be a well-founded, evidence-based prior belief that it's really improbable that racism is the issue there because systematic discrimination against white people mostly only happens in the delusional imaginations of Stormfront sympathisers.

Or maybe in places where whites are actually a minority and not in power. Honolulu, Baltimore, Atlanta, etc.

The question of sexism comes to mind here.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...ra-grabbing-6-year-old-face-article-1.1792044

If it was a male teacher grabbing a kid like that, they wouldn't get a slap on the wrists like the female did. Males probably seem more threatening and any male in a teaching job would probably have to be more sensitive around the kids.


There shouldn't be a "who has it worse" contest cause gender or racial inequality hurts all. It should just be a problem to be addressed.

On topic, this story is fishy. What was the real reason for firing this woman? The New York Times only denied sexist reasons but gave no positive evidence. That sets off my skepticism radar.

 

[Mudcat]

Whoosh!

Yes, that's how badly you missed the point. You really didn't need to point it out for us.

Linky no worky.

It was supposed to be something like this:

A Man Starts A New Job And Has To Work Their Way To Better Pay, No One Bats An Eye.

A Woman Starts A New Job And Doesn't Immediately Gets Same Pay As Predecessor, Everyone Loses Their Minds!
​

 

[newyorkguy]

...On topic, this story is fishy. What was the real reason for firing this woman? The New York Times only denied sexist reasons but gave no positive evidence. That sets off my skepticism radar.

Actually they did give reasons, in fact they explained their position.

Google search

Before somebody writes the Times gave no reasons shouldn't they at least look? The Google search only took 0.31 seconds....and it returned 93,200,000 hits!

 

[Beerina]

The story just came out today, and facts are in short supply. But I have no doubt the SJWs are already convinced that she was the victim of sexism. I see lots of opportunities for comedy ahead.

Did you notice use of the buzzword "pushy"?

 

[newyorkguy]

A study The American Journalist in the Digital Age by Indiana University researchers found:

Women journalists’ median salary in 2012 was $44,342, about 83 percent of men’s median salary of $53,600—about the same percentage as in 2001 and 1991 (81 percent), but a significant improvement over 1981 (71 percent) and 1970 (64 percent). Link

Flip side: Last July Newsweek published a cover story about Abramson. It included this passage:

Politico—the Washington trade paper that aims to “drive the conversation”—published a story suggesting that Abramson’s young editorship was already a failure. Quoting anonymous former and current Times employees, Politico claimed she was widely considered “stubborn,” “condescending,” “difficult to work with,” “unreasonable,” “impossible,” “disengaged,” and “uncaring”—“on the verge of losing the support of the newsroom.” One staffer confided to media reporter Dylan Byers: “The Times is leaderless right now ... Jill is very, very unpopular.”

Abramson told Newsweek that when she read the Politico story, "I cried." But the next morning at work, she said, "Times Co. chairman Arthur Sulzberger came down [to her office] and was very supportive."

My own feeling is, an organization like the Times is a very complex place. It's hard for outsiders -- even informed outsiders -- to really know what is going on in the inner sanctums. The real story may be a long long time coming out. Or it may never really come out. I think the only thing we really know for sure now is: Abramson was fired.