Wage (in)equality
Words: Roger Moroney Photo: www.motogp.com
I
read a news story the other week about how
many of the senior male staff at a leading
overseas broadcasting company have stepped
into the gender-pay arena... in a very positive
way. The blokes have decided to approach their
even higher chiefs (who obviously pay them)
and have requested that their salaries be slashed
to greatly reduce the inequality between what they
get and what a woman, doing the same job gets.
The disparity in wages was surprising, to a
degree. Because it goes on everywhere and that
ain’t at all right. I am cut from the cast which
declares that you simply, rightly, get paid for the
job you do, and whether you are male or female,
or have a finger missing, or red hair, or no hair, or
speak with a lisp, or have one leg slightly shorter
than the other, or drive a Holden... should not
come into that equation. You do the job, and
do it well, then you get paid accordingly.
But, of course, that scenario is taken from
some distant world we know nothing about.
The same world where television personalities
and cash-sucking billionaires do not gain
presidencies. The world where there are no
wars... because everyone is so happy, because
a case of two dozen fine IPA ales is just $1.80.
The gender wage inequality is however a thinly
veiled staple of working life on this world, so
to those broadcasting chaps I say, well done...
except the end result is still slightly off the
mark because while they have reduced the gap
there is still a gap there. Oh well, it’s a start.
And so, to motorcycling (yes, 273 words into
this scribing exercise and I finally mention
motorcycles... a new record I suspect).
While the F1 teams all ponder their new engines
and silly cockpit halos, and consider who they
can get to hold the sun umbrellas up over their
drivers on the grid, the MotoGP is also revving up.
The Tech 3 crew has pulled the pin on its Yamaha
team and there have been rumours Valentino
Rossi (whose racing business has teams running
Marquez, Dovizioso and Rossi’s salaries combined barely scrape together a living wage in F1 terms...
64 KIWI RIDER