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OCR for page 200
9
The Impact of Pay Equity on Public
Employees. State of Minnesota Employees'
Attitudes Towarcl Wage Policy Innovation
SARA M. EVANS and BARBARA J. NELSON
The origins of any social reform are woven
into the fabric of the society in which it
occurs. The dates when reform becomes
widely visible reflect the points at which
problem recognition and concerted re-
sponse coalesce. This coming together oc-
curred in the comparable worth movement
during the early 1970s, when the members
of the American Federation of State, County
and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) be-
gan to work for equal pay for work of com-
parable value for employees of the state of
Washington.i Their efforts and the strike
of municipal workers in San Jose, California,
encouraged the Minnesota AFSCME and
the Minnesota Council on the Economic
Status of Women to propose legislation re-
iMany states and localities (including the state of
Minnesota and its local jurisdictions) call their com-
parable worth policies "pay equity, " a term that conveys
the goal rather than the process. Many advocates now
prefer to define pay equity as "the goal of eliminating
wage discrimination" (American Association of Uni-
versity Women, 19873. In this paper we use comparable
worth and pay equity interchangeably to mean equal
pay for work of equal value (Nelson, 1985; Treiman
and Hartmann, 1981). A formal definition is provided
later in this section.
200
quiring pay equity (as it is called in Min-
nesota) as the principle for remuneration of
state employees. The State Employees Pay
Equity Act was passed in 1982 an(1 imple-
mented over 4 years beginning in 1983.
Minnesota thus became the first state to
have completely implemente(1 a pay equity
wage policy.
Minnesota's fully implemente(l pay eq-
uity policy offers an important opportunity
for examining the consequences for em-
ployees of adopting this wage policy. Most
discussions of pay equity have been abstract,
theoretical, and focused on macroeconomic
issues. The labor relations issues associated
with pay equity have been the object of
some speculation, but little systematic in-
formation has been available with which to
ascertain the accuracy of those views, in
part because so few workplaces have adopt-
ed the policy. Advocates suggest that pay
equity will contribute to employee self-
esteem, encourage job satisfaction, and re-
uce friction in the workplace (Gold, 1983;
Grune, 1984~. Opponents suggest that pay
equity will disrupt the workplace with jeal-
ousy an(l decrease the job satisfaction of
women workers by encouraging men (through
OCR for page 201
IMPACT OF PAY EQUITY ON PUBLIC EMPLOYEES
higher wages) to enter traditionally female
occupations (Cowley, 1984; Gold, 1983;
O'Neill, 1984; Seligman, 1984~. None of
these assertions has been researched.
As part of a larger study of the initiation
and implementation of pay equity in several
states and localities, the University of Min-
nesota's Comparable Worth Research Proj-
ect undertook a survey of state of Minnesota
employees to determine employee re-
sponses to pay equity. The survey charted
new ground, making available the first in-
formation about employee reactions to this
salary innovation. The research reported
here focuses on three sets of questions cle-
rived from the survey data: support and
kno~viedge questions (Who supported the
concept of pay equity? Who had heard of
the policy? How detailed was the knowI-
eclge?~; experience questions (Who reporte
and who actually received pay equity raises?;
and impact questions (What Tong-term con-
sequences die] employees see arising from
the adoption of pay equity? How (lid pay
equity affect job satisfactions. To answer
these questions, this paper presents a brief
history of the Minnesota pay equity policy;
a discussion of the consequences of wage
changes on labor relations; a presentation
of data, methods, and findings; and inter-
pretations drawn from the survey and from
interviews with policy makers in Minnesota.
POLICY HISTORY
Employees' responses to the implemen-
tation of pay equity are best understoocl in
the context of the history of this policy in
Minnesota, the specific content of the law,
ant] the process of its negotiation and im-
plementation. The contemporary history of
pay equity in Minnesota was initiated in
the 1970s by two groups Council 6,
AFSCME's local for state of Minnesota em-
ployees, and the Council on the Economic
Status of Women. Council 6 negotiated a
job evaluation study in 1974 because of the
relatively low wages of clerical workers com-
201
pared with janitors. Although the study was
never funcled, it constituted the first move-
ment for pay equity.
In 1976, the Council on the Economic
Status of Women was established by the
legislature. By 1981 the council had doc-
umented that women in state employment
earned 73.8 percent of what men in state
employment earned, and the average man
entering state service began at a salary
higher than the salary of the average woman
worker with 20 years of experience in state
employment (Council on the Economic Sta-
tus of Women, 1982:17; Rothchild, 1985~.
The pay equity initiative grew out of these
anomalies and the fact that the Equal Pay
Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
would] never address these structural sources
of wage (differences (interview with Linda
Berglin, 1987~.
Content
In 1982, the State Employees Pay Equity
Act was passed with the strong support of
AFSCME and the Council on the Economic
Status of Women (Evans and Nelson, 1986~.2
The law declared that it was the state's
policy "to establish equitable compensation
relationships between female-dominated,
male-dominated, and balanced classes of
employees in the executive branch." The
legislation specified that pay equity raises
were to be appropriated separately from
general salary increments. The first portion
of the money for pay equity raises was
appropriated the next year.
Within the limits of the special appro-
priation for pay equity, the cloliar amount
of the raises going to each eligible job cias-
sification was negotiate(l through collective
bargaining immecliately following regular
2The Minnesota Council on the Economic Status of
Women became the Commission on the Economic
Status of Women in 1983. Originally, it was a joint
legislative-public body. Currently, it comprises only
members of the legislature.
OCR for page 202
202
contract negotiations. Full implementation
over 4 years required appropriations from
two biennial legislative sessions and two
rounds of negotiation. Pay equity adde
$21.7 million to the personnel costs of the
state, which totaled 3. 7 percent of the wage
bill (Commission on the Economic Status
of Women, 1985~.3
The wage policy established by the State
Employees Pay Equity Act conforme(1 more
closely to the theory of equal pay for jobs
of equal value than did the policy of any
other jurisdiction that has implemented pay
equity. Define(1 formally, equal pay for jobs
of equal value is a wage policy requiring
equal pay within a jurisdiction or firm for
job classifications that are valuer] equally in
terms of skill, effort, responsibility, an
working conditions. In practice, imple-
menting this policy requires the application
of a single job evaluation system to all job
classifications within the jurisdiction or firm.
This single job evaluation system measures
in cletai! the skill, effort, responsibility, and
working conditions of every job classification
and combines the scores in each area to
produce a single, overall score for every
classification. lob classifications with equal
overall scores are consiclered to have equal
value to the jurisdiction or firm. Under a
pay equity wage policy, classifications of
equal value are paid equivalently iNelson,
19854.
Pay equity is more than pay for points,
however. The principle guiding pay equity
is that jobs held primarily by women or
minorities are paid less than jobs held pri-
marily by men or whites in part because
the incumbents of the jobs are women or
minorities (Feldberg, 1984; Treiman and
Hartmann, 1981~. Using this reasoning, the
sin 1984, the legislature passed a second, slightly
different pay equity statute requiring all cities, coun-
ties, school boards, and other public employers to use
a pay equity standard when setting wages. So far,
localities have paid for the implementation of pay equity
without assistance from the state. The survey does not
include employees of local jurisdictions.
PAY EQUllrY: EMPIRICAL INQUIRIES
jobs held primarily by men or whites receive
wages that do not reflect this legacy of
lowered wages due to the clevaluation of
the incumbents of the jobs. Under a pay
equity policy, male or white wage practices
become the norm for setting wages in jobs
held pre(lominantly by women or minori-
ties. 4
Implementation
Implementation of the Minnesota law was
base(1 on an existing point factor job eval-
uation system for state employees ant] an
existing technical pay equity analysis of that
system. In 1979, Hay Associates (now Hay
Group), a consulting firm, completed an
examination of the state's personnel policies
an(1 practices. An analysis of the Hay As-
sociates job evaluation data by the Council
on the Economic Status of Women showed
that at the same point value, female-dom-
inate(1 jobs always paid less than the average
for male-clominate(l jobs.5 The male wage
line was then used in implementing com-
parable worth.
The Minnesota Department of Employee
Relations compared the wages of predom-
inantly male ant] female jobs at equivalent
point values (see Figure 9-1). If the female
job paid less, the wage rate for the female
occupation was a(ljuste(1 upward to the wage
rate of the male occupation. The state (lid
not alter the pay of balance:! classes below
the male wage line. Neither did the state
undertake an analysis ofthe racial an(1 ethnic
composition of job classifications. Only 3.8
4For an alternative methodology based on the same
principles, see Steinberg (1984, 1989~.
The econometric literature on pay equity debates
whether the full difference between the male and
female job lines can be explained by structural dis-
crimination. These arguments are less important in
single-firm analyses of comparable worth, in which
firm size and sectorial differences in the employment
of men and women have, by definition, been held
constant. See Aaron and Lougy (1986), Aldrich and
Buchele, (1986), and Bielby and Baron (1987~.
OCR for page 203
MPaCT OF PAY EQUITY ON PUBLIC EMPLOYEES
2.8
in 2.7
—O 2.6
2.5
"O 2.4
2 3
cat 2.2
O 2. 1
~ 2
>_ 1.9
~ 1.8
i, 1.7
I 1.6
~ 1.5
0 1.4
1.3
1 2
1 1 _ o ~
1 01 ~ 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
80 100 120 140
_
· ·—
CO o ·0~0 0
203
_
· oo
o
8
· ~
. . o
·" ~
I I J
160 180 200 220
JOB EVALUATION POINTS
240 260 280
FIGURE 9-1 Minnesota state government wages for male- and female-dominated jobs: Before pay equity. Note: · =
male-dominated job class (80 percent or more male incumbents); 0 = female-dominated job class (70 percent or
more female incumbents) (balanced job classes not indicated).
Source: Commission on the Economic Status of Women (19854.
percent of the state work force comprised
racial and ethnic minorities, a percentage
slightly higher than the population average
for the state as a whole.
As with the technical analysis, much of
the education of employees about pay equity
occurred before or during the legislative
process. AFSCME had a particular interest
in educating its members about the issue
because it represented 62 percent of all
state employees, including 75 percent of
women working for the state, and almost
85 percent of the employees receiving pay
equity raises (AFSCME Council 6, News
Release, July 25, 1983; Council on the Eco-
nomic Status of Women, 1982~. In the two
predominantly female bargaining units (health
care nonprofessional and clerical), the union
actively promoted pay equity. In the four
predominantly male bargaining units (craft,
service, technical, and correctional guards),
the union quietly responded to worker unease
that pay equity would come out of the
general salary increment. Other bargaining
organizations paid scant attention to the
issue because few of their members would
benefit. 6
After the legislation passed, employees
dill not get much information about how
pay equity would affect them. Employees
who were eligible for pay equity raises dill
not receive official notification from unions
or the state. Changes in one's paycheck
formed the major "notification" of pay eq-
uity, a notification that did not distinguish
between regular pay raises of approximately
3 to 4.5 percent per year and the additional
6A number of labor organizations, like the Minnesota
Association of Professional Employees, supported the
policy of pay equity but did not publicize it among
their members.
OCR for page 204
204
increment available through pay equity
raises.
The state took 4 years to implement fully
the pay equity raises. The average raise
totallect $2,200, with $1,600 added to wages
in the first 2 years and $800 added the last
2 years. Approximately 8,500 employees,
90 percent of whom were women, received
pay equity raises out of a total state work
force of 34,000 (Commission on the Eco-
nomic Status of Women, 1985~.
The Department of Employee Relations
and AFSCME reported receiving only a
very few complaints about the policy and
its implementation (1987 interviews with
Peter Benner, lames Lee, and Lance Teach-
worth). The only major problem that arose
was salary compression. The Minnesota As-
sociation of Professional Employees (MAPE)
reported that its members resented the fact
that the salaries of nonprofessional employ-
ees (say, accounting clerks) were now con-
si(lerably closer to salaries for professional
employees (say, entry-level accountants).
MAPE also believed that the salaries of
balanced classes should also have been raised
to the salaries of equivalently valued male-
dominated positions, an action that the state
chose not to take. MAPE has sought to
resolve the problem through salary nego-
tiations.
The relative ease with which Minnesota
implemented the policy rester] on three
factors. First was the atmosphere of re-
spectful and relatively calm labor relations.
Second was the state's smoothly running
personnel system. Minnesota has an excel-
lent compensation staff as well as comput-
erized salary and personnel information.
Both of these capacities allowed for the easy
calculation of pay equity raises and their
rapi(1 inclusion in paychecks. Third was the
prior existence of a job evaluation study
unrelate(l to the pay equity debate and the
implementation of raises. It is job evaluation
that has proved to be the most controversial
aspect of implementing pay equity in other
jurisdictions (Evans and Nelson, 1989a,b).
PAY EQUITY: EMPIRICAL INQUIRIES
WAGE CHANGES AND
LABOR RELATIONS
The advocates and opponents of pay eq-
uity who have speculated about its conse-
quences in the workplace have emphasized
its effects on job satisfaction and employee
relations. In their speculations they have
simply assumed that pay equity would be
well known to employees, personally salient
both to those receiving and not receiving
the raises, and a major contributor to actual
and perceived differences in work experi-
ences. The history of pay equity in Min-
nesota, however, and the larger body of
research about labor relations lead us to
expect somewhat different consequences from
implementing pay equity.
Given the long-standing controversy over
whether and when employees attempt to
maximize wages, it is remarkable how little
research has investigated what employees
actually know about the direct and indirect
financial rewards of their labor. Two types of
information are available from this small bo(ly
of research: estimations by college students
of the salaries available in various occupations,
and less scholarly work on employee knowI-
edge of benefits. The studies of salary knowI-
eclge in(licate that both college women and
men have an equal, and not particularly ac-
curate, knowleclge of the salaries of both
tra(litionally male an(1 tra(litionally female oc-
cupations (Yanico and Hardin, 1986; Yanico
and MihIbauer, 1983~. In studies of men and
women with the same college majors, but
not necessarily the same career aspirations,
women also believe that they will have Tower
entry salaries an(l lower peak earnings than
their mate counterparts (Major and Konar,
1984). The reports generated by the business
community on encouraging employee appre-
ciation of benefit packages suggest that em-
ployees know very little about the specifics
of their benefits and that union members are
no more knowledgeable than nonunion mem-
bers (Cuthbertson, 1984; FindIay, 1984;
Forbes, 1984; Hourihan, 1983).
OCR for page 205
IMPACT OF PAY EQUITY ON PUBLIC EMPLOYEES
The literature offers few guideposts to
hypothesizing about the effects of a change
in wage policy on workers' knowledge of
their own financial situations. We suggest
that employees who are better off materi-
ally, in terms of salary and education, and
employees who are more powerful orga-
nizationally, especially managers and
professionals, will have greater accurate
knowle(lge about pay equity policy an(l prac-
tices. This general relationship will be me-
cliated by the salience of the issue to in-
dividuals. We expect that employees in
traditionally female-dominated occupations
eligible for raises wfl} be more attentive ant]
hence more knowledgeable. But we must
also caution against "over determining" em-
ployees' responses to pay equity. Pay equity
is only one part of the financial situation of
employees, and remuneration is only one
part of the work environment. Even those
who might be advantaged most by the policy
change would reasonably have a limited
interest in the topic, especially when in-
formation is provided selectively, as it was
by AFSCME in Minnesota.
There is a much richer research tradition
concerning job satisfaction. This literature
shows that job satisfaction is the product of
several related qualities of work life: the
intrinsic nature of the work; the "conve-
nience" aspects of the work, including work-
ing conditions in the broadest sense; finan-
cial rewards, including salary, fringe benefits,
ant] security; relations with co-workers; abfl-
ity to clevelop a career; and adequate re-
sources to do the job (Kalleberg, 1977:128;
CheTte et al., 1982; Crosby, 1982; Mottaz,
1986; Staines and Quinn, 19791. Overall,
people with higher salaries and more in-
trinsically interesting work (which often in-
volves a good clear of independent judgment)
are more satisfied with their jobs.
The process by which individuals deter-
mine job satisfaction is somewhat more com-
plicated, however. Individuals determine
job satisfaction by comparing the job traits
they value with the job traits that are re-
205
warcled in their firm. Expectations about
rewards, type of occupation, and gender-
based socialization to work roles are espe-
cially important in understanding expecta-
tions of work satisfaction. Most studies show
that women are at least equally as satisfied
with their work as are men, but women's
satisfaction is believed partly to be a function
of low expectations and low rewards, es-
pecially for women in nonprofessional, fe-
male-dominated occupations (Campbell et
al., 1976; Kalleberg, 1977; Mottaz, 1986;
Murray anc] Atkinson, 1981~.
One of the problems with the job satis-
faction research is that it stops short of
proposing how changes in the workplace
affect satisfaction. Although Kalleberg (1977)
and Kalleberg and Griffin (1978) discuss how
changes in the economy affect job satisfac-
tion, the majority of the research on job
satisfaction uses cross-sectional data to dis-
cuss current satisfaction differences be-
tween groups of employees. If one stays
within this paradigm, one is brought to the
untenable position that a change in mon-
etary expectations and an "equivalent" change
in monetary rewards results in no change
in the total amount of job satisfaction, thus
denying the effects of experiencing changes
in expectations and rewarcls.
The introduction of a pay equity wage
policy in the state of Minnesota offers the
opportunity to rethink and test, in a very
preliminary way, the consequences of wage
changes on employees' job satisfaction. The
important theoretical question is, Does pay
equity change expectations, ancI if so, how
an(l with what results? As a policy, pay
equity says that the work traditionally done
by women is more valuable than the pay
available for it has reflected. To the extent
that individuals know about pay equity and
believe its premises, the policy has the
power to change expectations, where ex-
pectations reflect both altered perceptions
of deserving higher salaries and wanting
them (Crosby, 1982~. If individuals know
about the policy and also receive the raises,
OCR for page 206
206
they will have increased their expectations
and increased their rewards, possibly in-
creasing their job satisfaction. Likewise, if
individuals know about the policy and thus
increase their expectations but clo not re-
ceive pay equity raises or do not know about
their pay equity raises, they may be less
satisfied with their work overall. We suggest
that the process of expectations and rewards
affects overall satisfaction with work.
Clarifying assumptions about context is
crucial when presenting a process approach
to job satisfaction. We suggest that raised
expectations and raised rewards will yield
greater job satisfaction because the pay eq-
uity policy and the implementation process
in the state of Minnesota were not very
conflictual. The policy was implemented in
an atmosphere of good labor relations and
thus was not attached to any other griev-
ances that might color employees' knowI-
edge of or response to it. Similarly, the job
evaluation was done prior to and completely
separate from the implementation of the
raises. Because the state of Minnesota sep-
arated job evaluation from pay equity anal-
ysis and policy, the implementation process
reflects the impact of wage change, not job
comparisons.
DATA AND METHODS
Survey Design
The data used in this analysis are from
the Public Employee Survey of 493 state
of Minnesota employees fielded by the Min-
nesota Center for Survey Research in June
1985. Before fielding the survey, the Com-
parable Worth Research Project cliscussed
the survey with the Department of Em-
ployee Relations and every public union
and labor organization representing state
employees. The survey design integrated a
mailed questionnaire and telephone survey
methodology.
A sample of 1,000 employees was con-
tacted by two letters at work. Those who
PAY EQUITY: EMPIRICAL INQUIRIES
returned a postcard indicating their will-
ingness to be interviewed were contacted
at home. Respondents were quota-sampled
at the telephoning stage to make certain
that the final sample represented the 16
bargaining units in appropriate proportions.
The response rate to the letters requesting
participation was 65 percent. Backstrom an
Hursh-Cesar (1981) consider a 70 percent
completion rate for a mailecl questionnaire
extraordinary. Analysis of the characteristics
of the 493 individuals finally interviewed
by telephone and those not interviewed but
mailed initial letters found that the two
groups were quite similar in terms of gen-
ler, job locations, and bargaining units.
Variables
The telephone survey asked 176 questions
on work history, attitudes toward public
employment, employee experiences in the
workplace, worker satisfaction, information
and attitudes about pay equity, experience
with Minnesota's pay equity policy, political
beliefs, use of social programs, and socio-
economic an(1 demographic information. The
analysis presented here uses a specific set
of questions clesigned to determine respon-
(lents' support for, knowledge about, receipt
of, and reactions to pay equity, as well as
a number of variables that measure material
and organizational position ant! ideological
beliefs.
Support
All respondents were asked a question to
ascertain their support for the pay equity
concept. It read, "If studies showed the
work of delivery van (Irivers and clerk typists
required the same level of skill, training,
responsibility, and so forth, should an em-
ployer pay these types of positions the same?"
The (lelivery van driver and clerk typist
positions were equally rate(l in the Hay
Associates job evaluation stu(ly conclucte~l
in Minnesota.
OCR for page 207
IMPACT OF PAY EQUITY ON PUBLIC EMPLOYEES
Knowledge
To ascertain knowle(lge of pay equity, all
respondents were asked, "Have you heard
anything about pay equity or comparable
worth?" To determine the accuracy and
depth of respondents' knowle(lge of pay
equity, respondents were asked if they agreed
or disagreed with the statements, "Only
women can get pay equity raises" and "Pay
equity will increase the state retirement
benefits of people getting these raises."
Exper~ence
Respondents were also asked, "Did you
receive a pay equity or comparable worth
raise in 1984?" This information was later
cross-checked against the official list of job
classifications eligible for pay equity raises.
Respondents gave information on the size
of their pay equity raises for contract year
1984, which was just ending. This infor-
mation was also cross-checked against the
state's salary scheclule.
Perceived Impact
Reactions to the long-term consequences
of pay equity were determined through two
kinds of questions. First, we asked respon-
dents who knew about pay equity whether
they agreed or disagreed with two state-
ments expressing possible negative conse-
quences of the policy. The statements were,
"Pay equity causes many problems in the
workplace" ant] "Pay equity will result in
some salaries being frozen." Second, we
asked all respondents about job satisfaction
with the question, "Within the last year,
have you felt that your work is a satisfying
experience very often, occasionally, or rare-
ly?"
Material Position
Material position was defined as a com-
bination of social location and inclividual
207
resources measure(l by sex, age, education,
and salary. Using 1985 salary (1ata available
from the Department of Employee Rela-
tions, we calculated 1984 salaries as 4.5
percent lower than 1985 salaries, 4.5 per-
cent being the average raise AFSCME em-
ployees received for 1985.
Organizational Position
Years employed by the state of Minne-
sota, type of occupation as measured by the
three-digit census code, anc] full- or part-
time work were used to measure organi-
zational position. Questions about depart-
ment, union membership, intensity of union
activity, an(1 bargaining unit were asked,
but they showed little variation and were
not predictive and are thus not presente
in this analysis.
Ideological Beliefs
Ideological beliefs were measure(l by a
question forcing respondents to identify
themselves as liberal or conservatives an
a question inquiring about support for the
women's movement. The latter question
was, "In terms of achieving equal rights and
opportunities for women, do you fee! that
the women's movement in this country has
not gone far enough, has gone about as far
as it should go, or has aIrea(ly gone too
~ I,,
lard
Sample Characteristics
Before discussing the specific findings
about pay equity, it is useful to present
some general information about the state
of Minnesota's work force as reflected in
this sample. As mentioned before, the
state employs 34,000 full-time workers,
7Twenty-five respondents volunteered that they were
"moderates." The background, beliefs, and behavior
of moderates were virtually identical to those of liberals,
and they were coded with them.
OCR for page 208
208
86 percent of whom are represented] by
11 unions. Bargaining occurs through the
16 functionally defined bargaining units.8
Not surprisingly, the state employs well-
educated workers: 4 percent had not grad-
uated from high school, 28 percent were
high school graduates, 31 percent hail some
college work, and 37 percent had a bach-
elor's or advanced degree. The 68 percent
of state workers with at least 13 years of
education compares with the 35 percent
of the adult population in Minnesota (as
measured by those 25 years or older) that
has the same level of education (Minnesota
Department of Employee Relations, 1987~.
By an(l large Minnesota employees like
working in the public sector and like the
type of work they (lo. Specifically, 83 per-
cent of the respondents said the government
is one of the best employers to work for
and 62 percent reported that they wished
to remain doing their current type of work.
Two-thirds of state workers had worked for
the state for 7 years or more, but only half
of these long-term employees had worked
at the same job within state employment
for 7 or more years. Like most public em-
ployers, the state of Minnesota has a strong
internal labor market.
State of Minnesota employees are fairly
well paid, in part because they are so
heavily unionized. The mean salary in
contract year 1984 was $22,500. But the
distribution of salaries was highly depen-
dent on gender. Whereas 60 percent of
all employees ma(le more than $20,000,
there were significant gentler differences
in those who earned $20,000 or less. Just
over a quarter (27 percent) of male em-
ployees earned $20,000 or less, but just
over half (55 percent) offemale employees
earned that wage.
8The University of Minnesota was chartered before
Minnesota became a state, and thus, university em-
ployees are not state of Minnesota employees and are
not counted in the tally of state of Minnesota workers.
PAY EQUITY: EMPIRICAL INQUIRIES
FINDINGS
Support
Within this setting, the first task of the
analysis is to answer the questions on em-
ployees' support for the concept of pay
equity and its application in their workplace.
Employees gave the concept of pay equity
overwhelming support: 81 percent reported
that if studies foun(l the positions of delivery
van driver and clerk typist equivalent, the
two positions should be paid equivalently
(Tables 9-1 through 9-31. Political attitude
research has consistently found that Amer-
icans are much more willing to support
general equity or liberty questions than they
are willing to support specific equity or
liberty questions. More people, for exam-
ple, support the idea of free speech than
support an atheist speaking at the public
library (Aberbach et al., 1981; McClosky
and Brill, 1983; Wynia, 1974~. Thus, support
for specific comparisons between jobs in-
dicates strong support for pay equity.
Most groups in our survey gave the con-
cept of pay equity strong support, even
those who have been hypothesized by op-
ponents to oppose the policy. For example,
79 percent of managers supporte(1 equal pay
for drivers and typists, as (lid 78 percent
of conservatives. More liberals (86 percent)
supported pay equity than conservatives,
but the high level of conservative support
for the policy is the most striking feature
of the ideological comparison.
It was women and those who believed
that the women's movement had not gone
far enough who were especially strong sup-
porters of the concept of pay equity. Almost
87 percent of women in the sample agreed
with paying drivers and typists the same,
compared with 76 percent of men. Likewise,
87 percent of the respondents who reported
that the women's movement had not gone
far enough supported paying drivers and
typists equally, compared with 66 percent
OCR for page 209
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210
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OCR for page 211
IMPACT OF PAY EQUITY ON PUBLIC EMPLOYEES
TABLE 9-3 Support, Knowledge, and Impact of Pay Equity, by Ideological Variables
211
Support for Women's Movementa
Support, Knowledge, Total Ideologya Not Far As Far Gone Too
and Impact Population Liberal Conservative Enough As Should Far
Support and knowledge
Drivers and typists paid
equivalently: % agreed 81.2 86.4 78.1b 87.3 81.0 66.2
(484) (213) (256) (228) (163) (77)
Ever heard of pay equity:
% yes 81.5 89.4 76.5 88.7 73.9 76.3
(493) (216) (260) (230) (165) (60)
Pay equity only for womenC:
% disagreed
Pay equity means better
pensionsC: % agreed
Perceived impact
94.4
(395)
82.7
(370)
96.8
(189)
78.3
(175)
gl.gd
(197)
86.7b
(188)
98.5
(202)
84.2
(190)
91.7
(121)
78.1
(114)
87.9
(58)
85.1d
(55)
Pay equity causes many
problemsC: % agreed 35.9 28.8 42.6 30.0 34.7 57.4
(395) (190) (197) (200) (121) (61)
Pay equity means some
frozen salariesC: % agreed 59.2 61.0 57.94 60.0 56.3 64.44
(390) (187) (195) (200) (119) (59)
Job satisfaction:
% very satisfied 57.4 54.6 60.0 55.7 60.0 53.'
(493) (216) (260) (230) (165) (80)
NOTES: N's in parentheses. The x2 statistic for each distribution is significant at the .01 level unless otherwise
indicated.
aControlled variable population totals are smaller than uncontrolled variable population totals due to missing data.
bX2 is significant at the .05 level.
COnly asked of those who had heard of pay equity.
~X2 is not significant at the .05 level.
Of those who said that the women's move-
ment had gone too far. Interestingly, men
and women expressed the same strong sup-
port for the women's movement.
Regardless of their position on the wom-
en's movement, women retained strong sup-
port for the concept of pay equity. Almost
82 percent of women who thought that the
women's movement had gone too far sup-
porte(1 pay equity compared with only 55
percent of men with similar opinions.
Knowledge
Just as the concept of pay equity was well
supported, the actual policy was well known:
82 percent of state employees hack heard of
pay equity or comparable worth. As with
all the questions of fact in this survey,
respondents with more organizational pow-
er and greater informational and economic
resources were more knowledgeable. In this
instance, higher salary an(l higher status
employees, e.g., managers an(l profession-
als, were more knowleclgeable. In contrast,
service workers were notably unknowlecige-
able about the policy: only 49 percent ha
heard of pay equity or comparable worth.
For our interests, those who ha(l not heard
of pay equity are particularly important to
(refine. Of those who hail not heard of the
policy, 59 percent earne(l $20,000 or less
OCR for page 212
212
PAY EQUITY: EMPIRICAL INQUIRIES
per year (compared with 40 percent of the TABLE 9-4 Experience with Pay Equity:
sample), 30 percent were service workers Reported Versus Actual Pay Equity Raises
(compared with 11 percent of the sample),
ant] 17 percent were part-time employees
(compared with 7 percent of the sample).
Having heard of pay equity or comparable
worth does not indicate what specifically
employees knew about it. Respondents who
replied that they had heard about the policy
were asked two questions about policy con-
tent. The first question inquired about the
common misconception that pay equity rais-
es were available only to women, rather
than to -all incumbents of female-dominated
occupations. Almost everyone (94 percent)
un(lerstoo~1 that pay equity raises went to
men as well as women.
The second question determined whether
respondents believed that pay equity would
increase the state retirement benefits of
those receiving this kind of raise. Here,
too, employees were quite knowledge-
able 83 percent knew that pay equity rais-
es would also raise pension benefits. Vir-
tually all employees with at least 17 years'
or more tenure with the state, regardless
of age or income, correctly understoocI that
pay equity would improve pensions.9 This
suggests that state employees who are be-
ginning to think about retirement know at
least the rudiments of the formula that
determines retirement benefits.
Experience
In terms of the consequences of pay eq-
uity for employees and for the success of
the pay equity reform movement, the most
important questions in the survey deal with
the experience of employees with pay eq-
uity specifically, who thought she or he
got a pay equity raise and who actually
received one. When asked about receiving
Seventeen years of tenure with the state is ap-
proximately one-half a standard deviation above the
mean tenure.
Group
Received No Raise
Raise Received
-
75.7
[56 9]
87)
12.0
[21.6]
33
37.1
[21. 6]
(33)
00. 1]
53)
Row
Total
Raise
reported
(N)
No raise
reported
(N)
Never heard
of pay equity
(N)
Column total
(N)
NOTE: Both row and column percentages presented;
column percentages are in brackets. x2 is significant at
the .01 level.
a pay equity raise, 24 percent of respondents
reported receiving one, 58 percent reported
not receiving this raise, and 19 percent
never heard of the policy and so were not
asked.
The results of a cross-tabulation of sub-
jective ant] actual raises reveal very im-
portant findings (Table 9-4~. On the one
hand, 76 percent of those who reported
receiving pay equity raises and 88 percent
of those who reported not receiving raises
were accurate in their reports. On the other
han(l, if we examine those who actually
received a pay equity raise, only 57 percent
knew they received it. Almost 22 percent
reported not receiving a raise, although they
received one, and almost 22 percent never
heard of the policy, even though they re-
ceived a raise. The social movement po-
tential of pay equity is certainly unfulfilled
if approximately 43 percent of the people
who benefit from the policy are unaware of
their benefits.
The information from Table 9-4 can be
displayed and analyzed in another form.
Respondents can be (livi(le(l into six groups
representing their subjective and objective
pay equity raise situation, as shown in Tables
9-5 through 9-7. Groups 2 and 4 were
24.3
t8.6]
(28)
88.0
[74.2]
(242)
62.9
[17.2]
(56)
t100.0]
(326)
100.0
115)
100.0
275)
100.0
(89)
(479)
OCR for page 213
213
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OCR for page 216
216
accurate in their reports; groups 1 and 5
were inaccurate; and groups 3 and 6 were
unknowlecigeable.
Accuracy increased markedly with each
increase in salary and educational level.
Only 53 percent of those earning $20,000
or less, and 55 percent of those with 12 or
fewer years of education accurately reported
their pay equity raise situation. In com-
parison, almost 94 percent of those earning
at least $30,000 and 91 percent of those
with at least 17 years of eclucation accurately
knew their pay equity raise status. (This
last finding was jointly a function of the fact
that these groups were disproportionately
composed of men and the fact that, overall,
only 7 percent of men in the sample received
raises. ~
The composition of each of the pay equity
raise groups tells us a great deal about the
organization of the state's labor force. Look-
in~ first at the accurate groups, croup 2 (no
~ O 1 \
~ . \ . ..
reported, no raise) comprises mostly men
in high-prestige, male-dominated occupa-
tions that were not eligible for pay equity
raises. Group 4 (yes reported, yes raise)
comprises mainly longer tenured women in
clerical occupations.
Turning to the inaccurate groups, group
1 (yes reported, no raise) was not particularly
distinctive; its only notable feature was that
most of the men who reported inaccurately
were located in this group. Group 5 (no
reported, yes raise) was similar to group 4
(yes reported, yes raise) in that it was pre-
dominantly composed of women (90 per-
cent), but this inaccurate group hacl more
service workers and fewer technical and
clerical workers. Group 6 (never heard, yes
raise) was the least well-educated and well-
pai~l of those getting raises. In many ways,
these were the most marginal female em-
ployees in state employment. lust over 30
percent were service workers, and 39 per-
cent were part-time employees. In terms
of social, organizational, and ideological po-
sitions, those who had no knowledge of pay
equity but received pay equity raises were
the hardest to reach.
PAY EQUITY: EMPIRICAL INQUIRIES
Accurate knowledge of the amount of
one's pay equity raise was unclerstandably
rarer than accurate knowledge of receiving
the raise. Of those who reported receiving
a raise (N = llS), more than a third die!
not know the amount of the raise. Of those
reporting receiving a raise and attaching an
amount to it (N = 73), 71 percent (N =
52) actually received a raise. Of those cor-
rectly reporting a raise and volunteering its
size, 18 percent (N = 9) were correct within
+ 15 percent of the real pay equity raise.
It is clear from this analysis that state
employees had better information about pay
equity as a policy than they did about the
policy's financial consequences for individ-
uals. The fact that almost half of the recip-
ients of pay equity raises did not know that
they received them and even fewer couicl
correctly name the amount is one conse-
quence of the implementation process in
the state of Minnesota.
Perceived Impact
We also wanted to know what employees
thought would be the long-term impact of
the pay equity policy (Tables 9-1 through
9-34. To determine the long-term effects,
we asked respondents who had heard of pay
equity whether they agreed or disagreed
with two negative scenarios posited by op-
ponents of pay equity. The first question
asker] whether pay equity causes many prob-
lems in the workplace: 36 percent agreed
that pay equity caused many problems, while
64 percent disagreed with the statement.
Men an(l women were similar in their views:
two-thirds of both groups believed that pay
equity dill not cause many problems. Most
material and organizational variables were
poor predictors of employees' beliefs about
pay equity causing problems. Of these vari-
ables, only tenure with the state differen-
tiated beliefs. Almost 46 percent of those
with 17 or more years tenure thought that
pay equity caused problems. Many of these
respondents did not support the women's
OCR for page 217
IMPACT OF PAY EQUITY ON PUBLIC EMPLOYEES
movement in general or pay equity in par-
ticular.
Indeed, ideological variables were the
most consistent predictors of beliefs about
pay equity causing problems. Those who
thought that the pace of the women s move-
ment was appropriate or too slow die] not
think pay equity caused problems in the
workplace. In contrast, those who thought
the women s movement had gone too far
believed that pay equity cause(l many prob-
lems in the workplace. Although it is pos-
sible that the response to the question about
problems in the workplace might be a result
of experiences with the implementation of
pay equity, it is unlikely that views on the
women s movement are a result of pay eq-
uity policies. In the absence of serious or
widespread complaints about the conse-
quences of pay equity, it appears that re-
spondents fitted their expectations (and per-
haps experiences) to their prior beliefs.
The second negative question elicited a
different pattern of responses. We asked
individuals whether they agreed or disa-
greed that pay equity would result in some
salaries being frozen. As previously dis-
cussed, this did not occur. No salaries were
frozen or Towere(1 due to pay equity. None-
theless, 59 percent of respondents believed
that pay equity would result in some frozen
salaries. Roughly 60 percent of every ma-
terial, organizational, an(1 ideological group
harbored this fear. No zero-order distri-
butions distinguished this finding.
Fear of frozen salaries may be linked to
employees not being aware that there was
a separate salary appropriation for pay eq-
uity. State employees might also have re-
acted to a much more complicated policy
environment. A local government pay eq-
uity act had been received more negatively,
and nationally, the Reagan administration
had made its opposition to pay equity more
vocal (Steinberg, 1989~.
The impact of pay equity on employees
is found not only in their explicit beliefs
about its consequences but also in the more
indirect consequences of the policy on the
217
interpretation of the work experience. lob
satisfaction is one such measure. As we
discussed before, job satisfaction is the re-
sult of the expectations and rewards asso-
ciatec] with several qualities of work life.
The kink] of global measure of job satisfaction
reported here reflects an individual s overall
assessment of those qualities and does not
have the specificity of a measure asking
about satisfaction with the financial aspects
of one s job (Nelson, 1981~. Likewise, cross-
sectional data provide a current snapshot of
job satisfaction without explicit reference to
past levels of satisfaction.
Mindful of these characteristics of the
measure and the data, the survey founc]
that state of Minnesota employees were
quite satisfie(l with their employer and with
their jobs. In the year prior to the interview,
57 percent found their jobs satisfying very
often, 34 percent occasionally found their
jobs satisfying, and 9 percent rarely found
their jobs satisfying. This pattern remained
the same for men and women, high- and
low-salary employees, average and welI-
educate(l workers, and people of every or-
ganizational experience and ideological per-
suas~on.
The only (listinctive pattern of job sat-
isfaction was associate(1 with the accuracy
of reporting an(l receiving pay equity raises.
Table 9-8 shows that the most satisfied
employees were those who had accurately
known about their pay equity raises (group
4), 68 percent of whom found work satisfying
very often. Those who knew about the pay
equity policy but not about their own raises
were among the least satisfied employees.
Only 39 percent of group 5 (no reported,
yes raise) reported being satisfied with their
jobs very often. In fact, group 5 had tower
job satisfaction than group 6 (never heard,
yes raise), 55 percent of whom reported
being very satisfied with their jobs.
The pattern of much higher levels of job
satisfaction in group 4 (yes reported, yes
raise) than in group 5 (no reported, yes
raise) hell] constant when the cross-tabu-
lation was separately controlled for sex, job
OCR for page 218
218
PAY EQUITY: EMPlRlCAL INQUIRIES
TABLE 9-8 Perceived Impact of Experience with Pay Equity Raises on Job Satisfaction
Very Occasionally Rarely
Perceived Impact Satisfied Satisfied Satisfied (N)
Group 1: Yes reported, no raise 53.6 42.9 3.2 (28)
Group 2: No reported, no raise 57.9 30.2 12.0 (242)
Group 3: Never heard, no raise 60.7 37.5 1.8 (56)
Group 4: Yes reported, yes raise 67.8 25.3 6.9 (87)
Group 5: No reported, yes raise 39.4 48.5 12.1 (33)
Group 6: Never heard, yes raise 54.5 42.4 3.0 (33)
NOTE: x2 significant at the .05 level.
tenure, education, and salary. In a very
modest way, these results suggest that in-
creasing expectations (in the form of knowl-
edge about a new wage policy) and increas-
ing rewards related to those expectations
(through pay equity raises known to indi-
viduals) increase job satisfaction. Similarly,
increasing expectations ant] not communi-
cating rewards decrease job satisfaction.
DISCUSSION
Pay equity is now completely imple-
mentec3 for state of Minnesota employees.
In human terms, the adoption of this policy
meant that the base pay of an entry-level
clerk increased $2,256 over 4 years, quite
apart from the $1,753 basic salary raises
negotiated for this job cluring the same time.
From 1981 to 1986, the ratio offemale wages
to male wages rose from 74 percent to 82
percent (Minnesota Department of Em-
ployee Relations, 1987:5~. These salary
changes reflect in large part a change in
the relationship of wages in female- and
male-dominatec! occupations receiving the
same point value in the state's job evaluation
system, although some part of the increase
may also be due to increased representation
of women in high-paying professional jobs.
Through political organization and technical
analysis, pay equity supporters made avail-
able to state employees in traditional female
occupations some of the monopoly rents
traditionally available to organized male pro-
(luction workers in other oligopolistic sec-
tors (Edwarcis and Podgursky, 1986; Ed-
warcis, 1979~.
The vast majority of the employees ex-
periencing this change supported the con-
cept of equal pay for work of equal value
ant] knew about the general existence of
the policy. Over four-fifths of those who
had heard of pay equity knew that it would
improve the pensions of those who received
the raises, ant] knew that pay equity was
not just for women.
Beyond issues of knowledge and support,
the interpretation of employees' responses
to pay equity is somewhat more compli-
catecI. At the legislative level, AFSCME
chose an institutionally sensible strategy of
promoting pay equity in the predominantly
female bargaining units and merely re-
sponding to the worries of employees in
predominantly male bargaining units, a pol-
icy that the Department of Employee Re-
lations implicitly supported as well. From
AFSCME's perspective, too much publicity
would have raised concerns not applicable
to the implementation of pay equity for
state employees, concerns focusing on
whether the raises of women workers came
from what might otherwise have been a
larger general salary settlement.
At the implementation level, however,
AFSCME simply did not notify people of
the pay equity raise, nor dill the union make
any distinction between pay equity raises
and general raises. This strategy, and the
lack of information in newspapers and other
public sources about how the policy affecter]
specific jobs, led to a situation in which
OCR for page 219
IMPACT OF PAY EQUITY ON PUBLIC EMPLOYEES
almost half of those receiving raises die] not
know about them, either because they
thought they ha(l not received a pay equity
raise or because they hac] not heard of the
policy.
The paradox of AFSCME s strategy is
that in order to dampen opposition the union
implicitly chose to dampen support. This is
especially evident when assessing the im-
pact of receiving raises on job satisfaction.
Although job satisfaction was relatively high
for all employees, those who correctly re-
ported receiving pay equity raises were the
most satisfied with their work. Those who
knew about the policy but die] not know
that they ha(l receive(l a pay equity raise
were the least satisfied with their jobs.
AFSCME s strategy traded off the potential
increase in satisfaction arising from all the
beneficiaries knowing about their benefits
against the potential increase in clissatisfac-
tion of nonbeneficiaries arising from nega-
tive perceptions of the policy if it were more
widely known.
The strategy seems wise in light of the
beliefs held by some employees about the
long-term consequences of pay equity. Em-
ployees maintained some negative expec-
tations for the policy. Slightly over one-
thircl believed pay equity cause(l serious
problems in the workplace, ant] almost two-
thirds thought that some salaries wouIc] be
frozen. Those who believed that the wom-
en s movement had gone too far were the
most likely of any group to believe that pay
equity caused problems. Knowing that for-
mal complaints were uncommon, it appears
that individuals fit their views on this in-
novation into their existing icleological
frameworks. The importance of the finding
about widespread] concern over freezing sa-
laries is that it existed, even though no
salaries were frozen at any point in the
process, nor was there ever any discussion
of freezing salaries. Ironically, it was just
this kind of concern that AFSCME wanted
to discourage.
One of the conclusions that can be (lrawn
from this analysis is that the strategy used
2~9
by labor or management in presenting pay
equity to employees greatly affects how
employees will respond. In essence, unions
and employers make explicit or implicit
political decisions affecting how easy or dif-
ficult the implementation process will be.
If either actor wants to generate concern
and mistrust, it is very easy to clot As is
the case in many political situations, con-
veying accurate information specific enough
to change peoples expectations, if not their
consciousness, is much harder, especially if
the information is technical.
In Minnesota, AFSCME chose to target
the employees most affected by pay equity
and those most likely to support it, while
not spending their limite(l resources trying
to convince those least affected and most
likely to be wary. AFSCME could use this
strategy because it represented nearly two-
thir(ls of the work force, including employ-
ees who would and would not receive pay
equity raises. The union was clearly suc-
cessful, nurturing the good will of state
employees toward equal pay for jobs of equal
value. At the same time, however, some
negative expectations persisted despite a
positive experience.
The strategy for and outcome of imple-
menting pay equity might be very different
in a work force not dominated by one union,
or where pay equity is opposed by man-
agement. In these situations employee re-
sponses to pay equity could take one of two
tacks. Unions might fight among them-
seIves, each reflecting its concern that its
members not lose their relative wage po-
sitions; or unions might form coalitions to
present a united front to managers less
supportive than those in the state of Min-
nesota. The choice of rivalry or coalition
would itself (lepen(l on the power and in-
terests of all the parties involved.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to thank Nancy Johnson
for research assistance, Lavon Anderson an
Lin(la Harris for computational assistance,
OCR for page 220
220
and Debra Tomes Leon and Ellen CarIson
for preparing the manuscript. We would
also like to thank Steven Hoenack, Morris
Kleiner, Kay SchIozman, and Linda Waite
for their helpful comments. This research
was supported by grants from the National
Academy of Sciences, the Northwest Area
Foundation, and the University of Min-
nesota. University support was ma(le avail-
able through the Office of the Academic
Vice President, the Center for Urban and
Regional Affairs, the Graduate School, the
Conflict and Change Center, and the Hu-
bert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Af-
fairs.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
job satisfaction
