Hey Alasdair, what about the time lost with men thinking about sex?
June 23rd, 2011 at 5:13 pm by David FarrarStuff reports:
The head of the Employers & Manufacturers’ Association has publicly apologised over comments he made on radio this morning about women’s menstruation and its effect on workplace productivity.
Alasdair Thompson, the chief executive officer of the EMA (Northern) and a member of the APEC Business Advisory Council, said he was amazed with the enormous response he’d had via email since making the comment that women get paid less than men because they take sick days ‘once a month’.
Alasdair is only looking at half the picture. Yes, women may menstruate once a month which may distract them from their jobs, but men think about sex around 400 times a month, which surely leads to far more lost productivity.
Meanwhile there is a village in Auckland that wants its idiot back.
June 23rd, 2011 at 5:17 pm
Already been commented on in the GD; but what a fool!
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 5:23 pm
I listened to him.. he was rude and spoke over the top of Kelly and the interviewer and would have reinforced a view that he was stuck in about 1970.
The pity of it was he had a small point that exposing too much of how wages are struck could well lead to discord in an organisation and give rise to more industrial unrest, and he made the good point that his two highest paid lawyer employees are women.. because they are the best and their jobs have high complexity.
JC
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 5:24 pm
but men think about sex around 400 times a month,
And you havent even mentioned the amount of time taken on google searches for “Clitoral Stimulation” ;-0
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 5:24 pm
He would have been better off by saying women’s pay rates are lower on average because of time-outs due to pregnancy and child-rearing.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 5:28 pm
@ voice of reason. That’s ‘clitoral orgasm’ Please pay attention
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 5:33 pm
There was a study that came out about a year ago that claimed the opposite, that men took more sick leave on average than women. I have to admit I was sceptical when I heard it, based on my own experience working in an office environment for 20-odd years. But this guy is an idiot for making unsubstantiated claims. An own goal.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 5:38 pm
Already posted this in GD but ….
So in one brief response Alasdair Thompson has:
– pissed of many woman managers in private sector businesses.
– reinforced the left-wing image of private sector employers as variations on Mr Burns.
– failed to take the opportunity to describe all the factors that can account for gender pay differentials – especially the “lifetime averages” arguments so beloved of the left when pushing for clunking, all-encompassing regulations that simply fuck things up without addressing real gender discrimination cases.
– Failed to explicitly condemn such specific cases where they are found.
– Failed to explain that private sector employers would, in this day and age, be nuts to deliberately crap on 50% of their potential workforce.
– Destroyed his own ability to ever be taken seriously on this issue again.
– Left the field wide-open for the Helen Kelly’s of the world to push their demand for ever more laws and regulations.
Clap……clap……clap.
Moron.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 5:39 pm
“men think about sex around 400 times a month” is pseudoscientific bullshit. It’s 100% completely impossible to measure this with current technology.
P.S. For women with no maternity risk, there is no gender pay gap.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 5:49 pm
Fix the capital L FFS!
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 5:56 pm
For crying out loud, did no one pick that the whole carry-on was simply designed as a union-inspired, publicity-grabbing wind-up by Helen Kelly? I listened to the item, which wasn’t anywhere near as sensational as the subsequent news reports blew it up. The whole structure of the con was clear and apparent.
Kelly is a stirrer, nothing more, whose narrow responsibilities revolve around her and her union. I went head to head with her father several times, years ago, over his idea of award increases that weren’t possible – let alone remotely justified – and Helen shows the same destructive tastes for divisive fictions. The bill she was pushing was fostered by the Greens, but in all probability with the discredited rabble that is Labour featuring silently in the background. It’s a non-issue and is the last thing on which any sort of attention needs to be directed in our present economic state.
Thompson could have handled the issue better – but to see what our media cesspool has created of it makes me shudder in disbelief.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 5:57 pm
The bigger issue are people who smoke. They are constantly taking 10+ minute breaks to have a fag. I would not employ a smoker. Women with children are always taking time off. I would resist employing them as well. Your most productive workers are those who have no child-care responsibilities who are moderate (or non) drinkers, who do not smoke nor take drugs.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 6:03 pm
Agreed Positan,
The whole item wasn’t as bad as is being made out. In fact, the woman I was with at the time thought that Thompson had won the overall argument.
I, on the other hand, thought that Thompson had screwed up because he had alluded to working and menstrual cycles. From that point on, it was never going to be about pay equity.
The thing to always remember is that the media is not interested in resolving a situation. They are interested in where the story can go. That is Media training 101 (or pre 101). Epic fail, Thompson.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 6:12 pm
I’ve never heard the menstruation/sickness theory, but it is correct to say that after controlling for relatively greater time out of the workforce women take the gender pay gap disappears. In other words, men who take time out of the work force see the very same pay gap emerge as do women. Human capital depreciates at the same rate for both genders. Discrimination explains about none of the gender pay gap.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 6:15 pm
Only 400 times??
Thats a bit much. I only think about it once – I just don’t stop….
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 6:17 pm
Anecdotally had always understood men’s distraction to be on the order of 400 times per MINUTE!
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 6:19 pm
David, this is probably the worst, most ridiculously politically correct post I’ve read on your blog in over five years.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 6:30 pm
He’s probably right, they are either off work or you’ve got a whole heap of crabby bitches wandering around biting everybodies head off.
Good on him for having some nuts
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 6:34 pm
I have to say that in terms of my workplace at least his comments wre absolutely spot on.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 6:49 pm
Agreed on all of that but here’s the thing. Being a spokesman
for a “right-wing group” (e.g. anybody who is a capitalist) means he should be aware of all this. He should be aware that this is about more than just media training.
Helen Kelly and co. are his ideological enemies – and so are the media, even though they depend on the capitalist system as parasites they’ll gleefully help set up the trap because they’re more on Kelly’s side than on that of the capitalists.
It’s like watching Kristol debate Jon Stewart on Obamacare: pathetic. No right-winger should be in disbelief nowadays: this is who they are, this is what they do.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 6:50 pm
DPF, how many times a day do women think about being sexy?
On another note, it’s interesting to see the veiled mysogyny of the hate-Alisdair pandering PC-ers. Any suggestion that men and women are different and these people will come down on you like a ton of angry, feminist brick-heads would. Oh wait…. These are the people whose #1 demand for abortion rights is motivated by the fact that their insane protestations against “sexism”, i.e. the normal biological differences between women and men, do nothing to change the fact that only women get pregnant.
Hey feminists and those weak-minded enough to believe you: It’s OK that women are different to men! I kinda like those differences, overall. What’s offensive is that feminists have succeeded in duping people into thinking they are pro-woman, when in reality they are self-hating women who resent being born female.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 6:53 pm
This is such a beatup — if you have have actually listened then you’d see that he has been taken out of context. I don’t know why he apologised, he didn’t say anything untrue.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 6:56 pm
What nickb said. This is also my experience of decades working in government and corporate workplaces.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 6:58 pm
http://www.scb.se/Pages/PressRelease____309346.aspx
Well it seems to be true in Sweeden.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 7:45 pm
there are real problems with the proposal to make everyone’s salary public knowledge in the workplace.
It’s not going to help the work-place.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 7:56 pm
A storm in a D cup.
If we spend our time hand wringing over such matters it is little wonder that New Zealand is drifting.
Vote:This is similar to the Gibson/Nigger debate and about as productive.
We may as well try to prevent earthaquakes.
June 23rd, 2011 at 7:59 pm
Alisdair shouldn’t have opened his mouth without numbers to back it up. On the other hand his critics haven’t any facts either so they are just as bad as him.
Newsflash for unionists – some people are more productive than others. That’s why union awards are crap.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 8:09 pm
I have to say that females in the 17-21 age bracket are the worst by far. Can’t keep them off their phones, always talking amongst themselves and sick every other week.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 8:51 pm
He’s the Thames village idiot isn’t he – not from Auckland – we have enough of our own, including Len Brown, Penny Hulse, John Banks, Dick H, George Wood, etc
Vote:Give credit where credits due
June 23rd, 2011 at 8:54 pm
Plus – for a peak level organisation that should be media savvy, this guy is a village idiot and does his organisation harm. While the media reaction may be OTT, FFS he is a media ‘go to man’ and his handling / comments are as dumb as they get
Time for a new EMA spokesperson – or spokesman , given the makeup of the Board and members !
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 9:18 pm
Holy cow, what a train wreck of an interview on Campbell Live… television gold! Now would be a good time for Mihi Forbes to ask for a raise.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 9:22 pm
campit, you must be a child, I take it?
Campbell Live is a Kids’ Show, isn’t it?
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 9:33 pm
Wow! What a lapse in judgment. Perhaps a sign of encroaching dementia.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 9:49 pm
I’m a little worried about the ‘thinking about sex 400 times a month’ thing. What counts as ‘thinking about sex’? Full blown fantasizing or just feeling vaguely horny? Is it tested and monitored by using some kind of biological Mohs scale?
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 9:50 pm
Positan>Thompson could have handled the issue better – but to see what our media cesspool has created of it makes me shudder in disbelief.
Journalists like mischief. So do readers/viewers. If he’d not said anything outrageous, no one would’ve paid any attention to the interview at all.
He opened his mouth and said something stupid. No one made him do that.
tvb >The bigger issue are people who smoke.
Agreed. Smokers who disappear umpteen times a day to feed their habit are far less productive than non-smokers.
However:
>Your most productive workers are those who have no child-care responsibilities who are moderate (or non) drinkers, who do not smoke nor take drugs.
Possibly, but that narrows down the potential workforce to people over 50: any person under that age (male or female) could decide to start a family after getting the job. (No reason why it should always be the woman who takes time off when the kids are sick).
I don’t know any woman who has ever taken a day off sick due to the time of the month. There are a very few women for whom it’s a seriously bad time, but the vast majority of us just get on with it.
Do you think 50% of the population do or could function through 35-40 years of their lives if they took to their beds 12 times each year?
Labourdoesn’twork: did a feminist bite you as an infant, or something
nickb>I have to say that females in the 17-21 age bracket are the worst by far.
I think that’s age/attitude. Our place used to employ school leavers as ‘office boys’ (or girls). Both sexes were unreliable, often late, attitude problems. Then we took on a bloke who’d retired from his old job: place would probably fall apart now without him.
Pauleastby>He’s probably right, they are either off work or you’ve got a whole heap of crabby bitches wandering around biting everybodies head off.
Your evidence? Other than prejudice?
Tom: I’d agree with your list of points of ‘how he made a twit of himself’.
But:
>Helen Kelly and co. are his ideological enemies – and so are the media, even though they depend on the capitalist system as parasites they’ll gleefully help set up the trap because they’re more on Kelly’s side than on that of the capitalists.
Na, the media are just interested in the story. But I don’t get what you mean about parasites. Apart from state broadcasters, the media are private enterprise. Some people sell chocolate bars, some people sell news. You don’t sell dull chocolate, wrapped in plain paper. You don’t print/broadcast boring stories.
Interviewers likewise are out to provoke something interesting, not flatter the subject’s ego or give him/her a simple platform to make an unchallenged speech. Viewers would be moaning at the ‘easy ride’.
Thompson needs some media training, so next time he can go on and say uncontroversial stuff no one will take any notice of
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 10:00 pm
What he said: Bang on…..the evidence abounds.
That he said it out loud:….stupid considering the PC environment of chronic virginal fem-angst we currently inhabit.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 10:19 pm
You know what James, in the last few years I have managed scores of people, and appointed dozens. I prized the ability to appoint women with children because they were committed, stable, willing to work flexible hours and flexible contracts, and I could get highly qualified people that were tough to find elsewhere. Employing women with children gave me a real competitive advantage, and that showed up in all the business metrics I managed to.
Prejudice isn’t justified by low performance. It is the cause of low performance.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 10:30 pm
400 times a day might be closer to my statistical average. I’m just saying.
and contrary to popular myth I can (and do) multitask . . .
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 10:36 pm
They’re parasites in the sense that they need advertising money from private sector business to survive, especially nowadays with steadily declining viewers, subscribers and readers, while the reverse is not true since media advertising has only ever been one part of how companies reach their consumers – and a declining part at that in the last decade. In these terms the media have always been parasites.
But they’re also parasites in philosophical terms. Aside from specific business or economic oriented media like CNBC, NBR, The Economist, WSJ, and such like – the media do not spend any time promoting capitalist concepts. And in recent decades the increasing influence of leftist thought on journalists has meant that they saw themselves in the vanguard of changing society rather than just reporting it. Combined with a traditional attitude towards supporting the underdog the result is that, at a minimum, most journalists are inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to anybody who claims to be kicking against the “ruling” system – whether it’s John Minto or Helen Kelly. They fit the role of the modern oppressed, which leads to this:
I’ve not heard the interview so I’d be interested in whether Helen Kelly got asked any truly tough questions – tough in the sense of getting at the heart of the ideological beliefs underlying her proposed solutions and exploring whether they hold up in reality. As opposed to “tough” questions such as “whether this will hurt employers”, which are easily evaded by media trained people.
Let me try and explain it this way. I dumped the Listener over a decade ago because I got sick of the leftist approach they’d taken for decades but specifically over the way then journalist Gordon Campbell wrote a piece on the 20th anniversary of the first moon-landing. He was “tough” on the whole thing – but from a left-wing perspective, e.g. the effort was jingoistic patriotism on a childish “race” to the moon; money that was better spent on the poor; a great technical triumph but nothing more. If he’d had a right-wing perspective he could have written an equally tough article on the Apollo program from that viewpoint. But he did not because he could not.
This is what I mean by media bias: most journalists are so embedded in leftist thinking as second nature emotional responses that they could not even think of how to ask questions from a right-wing perspective. Which leads to your final comment:
That’s always been true and they think they’re being sensational, but – they’ve been boring for years now anyway because they’re so utterly predictable in the ideological stance they take, which is not overt but is shown by what they don’t ask as much as by what they do ask, by what they don’t cover as well as what they do. Gordon Campbell’s moon landing piece was boring because there was nothing new or fresh in the criticism: I’d read it all before, even in material dating back to the late 1960′s. A right-wing attack would at least had the benefit of being fresh.
But it also an evolutionary thing that results in your final statement. John Campbell complained several years ago that interviewing was not as interesting nowadays because of the number of media-trained people could … go on and say uncontroversial stuff no one will take any notice of.
Well gee John – if the result of non-media-trained naifs like Thompson making fools of themselves by saying what they think, is that the outfits they represent get done over by the likes of Helen Kelly and other activists, then you are going to get more media-trained people who know how to stay on message and be unthreatening at best and boring, boring, boring at worst. Anything else is suicide.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 11:05 pm
Ok. Interesting.
Trouble is, (off topic, sorry) without funding from advertisers etc, who will pay for journalism?
Bloggers only very rarely break news: mostly,they react to it.
And while newspapers/magazines etc may be biased, at least we know who they are and what their agenda is. Whereas bloggers could be anyone – like that lesbian Syrian blog that turned out to be some bloke in Scotland (was it?)
Also, traditional media are at least a central place to go for information. If it’s fractured over a million websites, say, then we’d miss most of it, not aware it existed.
If no one funds ‘real news,’ I think it bodes ill for democracy, at all levels.
If all that’s produced is entertainment, rather than real issues, and then likewise.
And yeah, you only have to listen to politicians avoiding answering questions and talking without saying anything to see how media training also doesn’t serve us so well.
>And in recent decades the increasing influence of leftist thought on journalists has meant that they saw themselves in the vanguard of changing society rather than just reporting it. Combined with a traditional attitude towards supporting the underdog the result is that, at a minimum, most journalists are inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to anybody who claims to be kicking against the “ruling” system
Good points (and good night!).
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 11:13 pm
Yes, but we don’t take sick days just to think about sex. Sure we might be five minutes late certain mornings – but that makes us more productive during the day!
I agree with others pointing out how the 400/month thing is untrue and there’s no science about it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was invented by a marketer – just like the “we only use 10% of our brain” bullshit.
Vote:June 23rd, 2011 at 11:49 pm
I have worked in professional environments for over 20 years – and I honestly can’t think of one time that a fellow female co-worker used her period as a excuse for a sicky…. I heard the interview, and was gobsmacked at the comment. Even the whole ‘oh but women take time out of their careers for babies’ argument is crap. Who wants a workplace that consists only of blokes? I have small children, and sometimes they have to take priority over work, but my employers (and co-workers) accept that this is part of my life, and clearly believe that I can still be a menstruating woman, and a mother, but still be a valued employee.
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 12:02 am
Oh and, (yes, I am cranky – and no, it is actually NOT that time of the month), the blokes that I work with are always having time off due to stupid sport injuries, where they haven’t figured out that they can’t run around squash courts like they could when they were 20, and manage to break legs or snap tendons. Don’t even get me started on the constant ‘physio’ appointments. Well at least they aren’t free anymore….
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 12:16 am
Vibenna said “Employing women with children gave me a real competitive advantage, and that showed up in all the business metrics I managed to.”
My experience has also been that most mothers returning to the workforce seem to have their wits about them. They have the desire to get the work done with minimal fuss, and the skills to deal with childlike co-workers. They have a stunning ability to cut through the bullshit. However they often want to work part-time/ flexible hours and will trade that for lesser pay.
edit – as would I
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 12:42 am
Men do not waste time thinking about sex. Men actually multi task. Breathe, think about sex and do whatever lse they are donig at the time.
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 7:19 am
It such a shame that this has detracted from the fact that it is inevitable and not necessarily unfair that women on average will always get paid slightly less than men. It all comes down to the fact that women are more likely to take maternity leave. If I owned a small business I would be less likely to employ a women in a critical job as it would be difficult having to let them go for up to a year while keeping their position open for their possible return.
If you disagree with me then put it into context, if you had a choice of two builders to build your house, but one of them had a reasonable chance of taking time off for a few months, but you had to keep their contract open for their return. The other builder had no chance of taking of that time and expecting their contract to remain open. Now lets assume that both equally quallified, experienced with good references. What builder would you hire? The one that could leave and dissrupt your plans without you being able to do a thing, or the one that couldn’t?
The other thing the pathetic greens and feminists forget about is women and men tend to have a predisposition for different types of careers which can affect average incomes. Gender diversity proposals on things like company boards to forget that more men go for these jobs.
The law that the fucktard greens want is really going to distort the truth on productivity, everytime it happens to show that men get paid more than women is goign to raise a whole lot of noise without considering the individuals involved. All good workers know who the unproductive workers are in their workplace, and alot of workplaces don’t have a significant number of people in the same position. So when the unproductive worker questions their salary and finds they (justifiably) get paid less and if they are the only female in that position, they can claim sexist salary policies. And the same could also go the other way, so the end result would be that everyone gets paid the same despite their real worth to the company… meaning you may as well join the bunch of losers in the local union.
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 7:50 am
Charlie Brown you are just a sexist dinosaur and the fact that your example is so watertight and rationally and logically sound is no excuse for making some people annoyed that you actually said it.
Justice for Alistair Thompson….and fight for the right of truth to be spoken no matter which in denial bedwetters get offended.
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 7:53 am
CharlieBrown
Your building analogy had an obvious flaw. Building contracts generally don’t make provision for the contractor to stop for a year to have a baby. If your builder gets pregnant, then she is still obliged to complete the contract.
Men and women have a predisposition to different careers. There may be some truth to that, but there is also the point that many female-dominated careers have tended to be less well remunerated simply because they were traditionally seen as ‘women’s work’. More recently, and with an increasing gender gap in educational performance, women are moving more and more into highly paid roles.
There still remain some gender differences that can be accounted for by more time on average out of the workforce and it’s unlikely that can change much. Most employers today recognise the value of a diverse workforce, and are prepared to adopt flexible policies.
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 8:05 am
mikenmild – I wasn’t saying that the provision was for pregnancy, it was just giving an example of any legally enforcable provision for time off is going to have an impact on what people (employers or consumers) are prepared to pay.
A real obious example where maternity leave has completly unfair and unreasonable outcomes is in dairy farm workers. If a female employee needs maternity leave in spring time, they make the employers life bloody hard as it is hard enough to find workers for spring time, let alone temporary workers.
All enforced gender diversity policies are actually sexist in themselves as they inevitably end up in some available roles only being available to one sex due to the fact that targets have to be met. Also, it enforces employers to look at making sex a factor in determining the suitability to the job.
Sorry james, I’m deeply saddened that I may have offended the irrational
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 8:12 am
There is certainly research to back up what Thompson said about women taking more sick leave than men, at least in a European context. A Swedish study published last year said that women take, or have taken, double the long term sick leave that men do.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2868818/
A Finnish study published in 2008 said that women take 50% more short term sick leave than men. Of course this research may not be replicated here, but in the absence of any other research I would hazard a guess and say that women probably do take more sick leave than men. Rather than demonise Thompson, the media and others might like to discuss this issue.
And as far as men thinking about sex, I’m not sure how that impacts on their work. I don’t know about you DPF but I can multi task
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 8:15 am
Charlie
You may well find that women workers are as scarce on dairy farms as they are on bullding sites. Dairying is quite a casualised work force anyway, so again its not really a great example.
Gender (or ethnic) diversity doesn’t need to be about targets. It’s really only about making sure situations are fair – that there are no artificial or traditional barriers to employment. A really good CE I once knew reckoned it was just about “a fair go”. I’d be the last to argue in favour of quotas or compulsion here.
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 8:17 am
Details of the Finnish study can be found here.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=4241746&page=1
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 8:24 am
Thing is there are reasons why men are paid more than women that have nothing to do with discrimination. Dr Warren Farrell only man ever to be elected to the board of the National Organisation for Women (NY Branch) found 25 of them. His research also found that when these 25 resons were controled for women on average actually earned more than men for the same job.
Part 1:
Vote:
June 24th, 2011 at 8:39 am
Looks like DPF is going soft.
Maybe it’s time he joined the Greens?
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 8:45 am
“Think about sex 400 times a month”
Psuedo Science. The kind the media loves.
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 9:32 am
Good discussion here about a high-profile gender bias case in the US:
Vote:http://www.slate.com/id/2297364/
June 24th, 2011 at 9:35 am
I don’t care if he was right or wrong, or if women deserve to be paid the same, more or less than there male counterparts.
His performance on Campbell live last night was absolutely appalling! It was so bad that my mouth was hanging open.. For fucks sakes, he was practically standing over the woman interviewing him. The guy is a complete tool, and for once i find myself echoing the muppets like Helen Kelly et al: Sack Him!
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 9:46 am
The worst aspect of this “thing” is that it has taken attention away from real issues and is reinforcing the mantra “equal pay for equal work” which completely and absolutely obscures any discussion on pay for performance. It has become all about “doing the same job” and the examples tossed out by Kelly relate to teachers and sewing machinists.
Thomson would have been much better asking Kelly why fewer women apply to be school principals (which I suspect is the reason that the category is dominated by men) and asking her to demonstrate that women teachers are treated differently from men.
Capturing the debate is much more important than trying to argue logically with a woman.
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 9:49 am
Possibly the most unprofessional television interview since Bob Tizard.
The real issue is not Thompson’s survival or otherwise. It is the culture of his Board – old fashioned, backward-looking, focused on yesterday’s heavy industry, white, male and geriatric. Only Laurie Margrain can hold his head up.
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 10:05 am
400 times a day might be closer to my statistical average. I’m just saying.
and contrary to popular myth I can (and do) multitask . . .
You sir, disgust me!
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 10:06 am
Equal opportunity employers, allow their female staff to work twice as long, so that they can earn as much as the men! (just joking)
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 10:34 am
Taking time off seems to depend on job security, health care affordability and weather conditions. In Northern Europe women are more likely to take sick leave and in Southern Europe men are more likely. At least according to this New York times report.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/20/business/worldbusiness/20iht-workcol20_ed3_.html?_r=1
Sweden also stands out in the study by Gimeno and Amick because it is one of only three countries in the EU — along with Finland and Belgium — where more women reported taking a sick day than men.
In all the other 12 countries, men were more likely to report taking a sick day, often by a large margin.
Austria had the largest disparity, with 20.4 percent of men reporting having taken a sick day, compared with just 12.1 percent of women.
In Britain, it was 13.3 percent for men and 10 percent for women. In Portugal, it was 10.1 percent for men and 6.8 percent for women.
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 10:36 am
@ CharlieBrown; It could be argued that, if women are earning less than men, then they are being denied equal opportunity somehow. (if one assumes that women are as capable as men) Unfortunately, redressing this perceived imbalance would further encumber our productivity, so perhaps the capitalist free market system is inherently flawed. Is it fair to disparage the liberal left simply because the ideals of equity and justice they hold are so hopelessly impractical? As for Alasdair Thompson; his remarks were just plain dumb regardless of their apparent veracity.
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 10:40 am
I’ve had the misfortune over the years to employ females.
Once a month is stretching it.
Once a bloody week is more like it.
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 10:46 am
MT_Tinman said “I’ve had the misfortune over the years to employ females.”
Probably not as great as the misfortune they would have suffered in working for someone like you.
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 10:50 am
I think what he said wasn’t incorrect. Essentially he said that the monthly cycle reduces productivity – it would be hard to argue that it doesn’t. It would also be hard to argue that breeding-age females (especially those who are recently married) are not a risky employment choice. It’s not that employers are sexist, it’s just that it’s fucking expensive when a staff member gets pregnant, leaves for a year, comes back, gets preggo again, comes back, then decides that priorities have changed and leaves work for good. My wife and sister both did this to their employers.
Insurance companies are allowed to discriminate against young people, old people, fat people, drug-users, mentally ill, smokers, immigrants, women, men, beneficiaries, various ethnic groups, diabetics, homosexuals etc etc. They simply collect statistical data and use that to weigh risk before arriving at a premium price. So is it any surprise that employers do the same when setting pay rates? I agree that it sucks to be discriminated against – I pay double the regular life insurance premium because of high cholesterol and BMI – but I understand why that is factored into the cost. How is employment any different?
Of course, Thompson is a fool for limiting his comments to this single topic – and he deserves a roasting for that. He should have listed ALL the factors that contribute to why women get paid less than men, and he should have listed other factors that go into making up a pay rate. Instead he singled out one factor which was bound to cause a stir. Especially with Helen Kelly involved. He should have known better.
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 11:16 am
I don’t know what the fuss is, all Thompson has done is tell the truth.
Vote:June 24th, 2011 at 5:41 pm
mikenmild – try telling a dairy farm manager that it is a casualised workforce at springtime. You have to work bloody long hours, in rotten weather, and it is far more work than just milking cows. It is not very easy to find a temporary worker at an affordable price to take on the most stressfull time of the year, particularly in more rural areas.
kingofthejuice – “Is it fair to disparage the liberal left simply because the ideals of equity and justice they hold are so hopelessly impractical”
The thing is they don’t have ideals of equity, they have ideals of equality. They believe that everyone has to be equal and get equal results. They don’t believe that everyone should have the same opportunity, they believe that everyone should have the same outcome. They have a victim mentality that says that if one demographic suffers from an imbalance of any sort then we need laws to fix it. They don’t even consider that more women WANT to be nurses or teachers, instead they focus on why there are more men CEO’s than women. They don’t consider that men typically are more happy than women with working 90 hour weeks and spending half of each year away from their families just to earn more money.
This isn’t a fault of capitalism, it is a fact of life. Men on average are more money and power hungry and happy to make personal sacrifices to get it. It has happened throughout history, it has happened in capitalist, communist, monarchist and any other society that has ever existed.
By the way – the greens are left, not liberal. Liberty is the belief in individual freedom, the greens believes in regulating freedom away.
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