Sexist New York Times Fires Woman For Demanding Equal Pay

[One Tenth]

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

 

[Puppycow]

Perhaps I misread, but didn't they also say she was paid 10% more than her predecessor?

The NYT claimed her total compensation package was 10% more. But that includes non-salary expenses (such as health care, etc), so the total compensation package could be higher even if the salary was lower.

Except this is a whole lot narrower than employees, it is the editor. A fairly normal trend in contracting industries is that headcount falls but not the pay of the top people, since the latter is a very different competitive market with way more bargaining power in the hands of the candidates.

Anyway I didn't find more than this on editorial compensation; it only compares two years and its old, but it outlines reasons why the duties (and thus expected talents) of editors may have increased.

A blog post in the New Yorker gets into a lot more specifics.

Let’s look at some numbers I’ve been given: As executive editor, Abramson’s starting salary in 2011 was $475,000, compared to Keller’s salary that year, $559,000. Her salary was raised to $503,000, and—only after she protested—was raised again to $525,000. She learned that her salary as managing editor, $398,000, was less than that of the male managing editor for news operations, John Geddes. She also learned that her salary as Washington bureau chief, from 2000 to 2003, was a hundred thousand dollars less than that of her successor in that position, Phil Taubman.** (Murphy would say only that Abramson’s compensation was “broadly comparable” to that of Taubman and Geddes.)

Murphy cautioned that one shouldn’t look at salary but, rather, at total compensation, which includes, she said, any bonuses, stock grants, and other long-term incentives. This distinction appears to be the basis of Sulzberger’s comment that Abramson was not earning “significantly less.” But it is hard to know how to parse this without more numbers from the Times. For instance, did Abramson’s compensation pass Keller’s because the Times’ stock price rose? Because her bonuses came in up years and his in down years? Because she received a lump-sum long-term payment and he didn’t?

And, if she was wrong, why would Mark Thompson agree, after her protest, to sweeten her compensation from $503,000 to $525,000? (Murphy said, on behalf of Thompson, that Abramson “also raised other issues about her compensation and the adequacy of her pension arrangements, which had nothing to do with the issue of comparability. It was to address these other issues that we suggested an increase in her compensation.”)

What is a fact is that Abramson believed she was being treated unequally. After learning, recently, that her salary was not equal to her male counterparts’, she visited with Sulzberger to complain. And she hired a lawyer because she believed she was not treated fairly.

 

[Francesca R]

There seems to be a trade-off in considering which aspects of this will look shoddier to the outside world:

--NYTs apparent low-balling of fixed remuneration for a female
--Somebody whining about the inadequacy of only a half million buck salary.

Both look unseemly.

 

[Morrigan]

--Somebody whining about the inadequacy of only a half million buck salary.

Uh...

 

[John Jones]

Uh...

If you're going to quote out of context, do it right.

 

[Mudcat]

--Somebody whining about the inadequacy of only a half million buck salary.

I've admittedly only ever done work that pays hourly, but I'm unable to understand why she's complaining about being paid marginally less for a job that pays more than what most people gets paid.

 

[colander]

I've admittedly only ever done work that pays hourly, but I'm unable to understand why she's complaining about being paid marginally less for a job that pays more than what most people gets paid.

For real. I mean, it's not like there's any sort of generally relevant principle involved here or anything, right?

 

[Morrigan]

I've admittedly only ever done work that pays hourly, but I'm unable to understand why she's complaining about being paid marginally less for a job that pays more than what most people gets paid.

And here we go... *facepalm*

 

[Mudcat]

For real. I mean, it's not like there's any sort of generally relevant principle involved here or anything, right?

Like experience, years having worked for the company, whether she's pulled overtime or hazardous duty, and so on... Right?

Or are you referring to pay difference because of gender?

I'm sorry if I offend but unless she can demonstrate that she has put forth the same amount of effort as her predecessor, I'm against her get the same level of pay whether she is a man, woman, white, black, straight, gay, religious, atheist, what have you.

An employer shouldn't be expected to pay more for less, it is that simple.

And here we go... *facepalm*

So she should be paid more for less amount of effort merely because she's a woman? There must be some definition of 'equality' with which I'm unfamiliar.

 

[Francesca R]

For real. I mean, it's not like there's any sort of generally relevant principle involved here or anything, right?

It's a little bit harder to demonstrate that there is while avoiding charges of snivelling over stratospheric pay.

 

[Sam.I.Am]

I did once--more than a decade ago--get a statement from my then employer that showed me a compensation total that included employers' social insurance contribution (similar to employer's FICA in the US). That was a stretch.

Do you think that any competent employer who plans on staying in business doesn't take every single cost of keeping any employee hired doesn't keep track of those kinds of things? If anyone thinks that the cost of the "Hidden costs" of keeping an employee hired are unimportant then they are a fool and would soon be out of business.

I would rather know than not know what those costs are (and very few employers tell their employees this because they get to shimmy around the subject and lead their employees to think that it costs more than it actually does). It tells me what they think that I am actually worth and it gives me a place to start negotiating if I think that I am worth more than what the total costs to them to get my butt in the seat working for them are. What's on the pay stub doesn't tell the whole story and doesn't give you (the employee) as solid of a footing to negotiate a higher salary. Alternatively it gives the employer a solid reason to explain why raises will not be coming that year (or will be less than expected) but at least you get to know why that is instead of having to take their word for it.

Either way I'd rather have a face up card game for all players versus one where one side is holding most of the cards and not showing them while they already know exactly what the other side has in their hand. That makes for really easy bluffing on one side and a tenuous position for the other.

 

[Francesca R]

Do you think that any competent employer who plans on staying in business doesn't take every single cost of keeping any employee hired doesn't keep track of those kinds of things?

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.

 

[quadraginta]

<snip>

Now that doesn't mean sexism had nothing to do with her getting fired, I have no idea whether it did or didn't. That also doesn't mean there isn't a problem with women generally being paid less for the same work, there is. However you can't point to this case as an example of that (assuming of course it is true that her compensation package was indeed higher than her predecessors).

Funny how that works.

There isn't any doubt that working in coal mines causes black lung, but, as any defense lawyer will insist, that doesn't mean that a particular case of black lung in a particular individual was necessarily caused by them working in a particular coal mine, even though that might be the only job they ever had, and the only mine they ever worked at.

Sure, the odds are good that it did, but you can't prove it, can you?

 

[Sam.I.Am]

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.

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.

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.

 

[quadraginta]

I've admittedly only ever done work that pays hourly, but I'm unable to understand why she's complaining about being paid marginally less for a job that pays more than what most people gets paid.

This objection rarely comes up in conversations about the obscene levels of compensation that senior executives in general get. Somehow they deserve all that extra money.

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

 

[Francesca R]

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.

I probably ever so slightly rolled my eyes at it.

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?

Course not.

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.

You might. One can work out what employers' NICs are anyway.

Knowledge is power and they gave it to you on a silver platter.

In general, perhaps (say, if the company volunteered otherwise unknowable items from its income statement to me). In this case there wasn't any secret knowledge imparted. But the general impression left IIRC was that this was somebody's bright idea (silly attempt) to elevate staff perceptions of company largesse in a lean year. I suspect it was not repeated because it perhaps did not produce the reaction the somebody hoped for.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I've admittedly only ever done work that pays hourly, but I'm unable to understand why she's complaining about being paid marginally less for a job that pays more than what most people gets paid.

I'm with you to the extent that in terms of gross inequalities in the developed world, class inequality absolutely overwhelms sex inequality. The sheer degree of injustice in how wealth is distributed based on birth dwarfs the unfairness based on sex. However sexism is still a bad thing and still shouldn't be tolerated. You can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

 

[Puppycow]

It's a little bit harder to demonstrate that there is while avoiding charges of snivelling over stratospheric pay.

Is "stratospheric" an apt adjective? A mere 6 figure salary? (My own is only about a tenth of hers but bear with me).

Compared to Mark Thomson the CEO how does it stack up?

How about compared to Jamie Dimon or Dick Fuld?

 

[Francesca R]

I think $0.5m total earnings gets you into "the 1%".

I kinda assumed that base salary was way under half of total compensation as well, but I have no idea how it is in the media biz. Jamie Dimon's salary is about $1.5m but his total comp exceeded $20m in 2013. I don't know what Dick Fuld is doing now . . .

I'm a partner at my firm so my salary is zero

 

[Francesca R]

The sheer degree of injustice in how wealth is distributed based on birth dwarfs the unfairness based on sex.

Quite a lot of people are quite activated about those asymmetries of injustice. One that often escapes from view is the degree of injustice based on when one was born, separate from where or into what kind of household.

/aside