The Stark County Political Report began a new series focusing on gender (equal pay for equal work) three Mondays ago with Volume 1 with an examination of "the commissioners office," "the Stark County treasury" and "the recorder's office."
Two weeks ago in Volume 2 the perusal was of the county auditor's and prosecutor's office.
Last week (Volume 3 in this ongoing series) the look was at the clerk of courts office and the Stark County sheriff department.
A primary document to be familiar with for anyone who cares whether or not American women are treated equally in the job market is in the Equal Pay Act of 1963. However, the fight for fairness for more than half the American population continues inasmuch as the fact of the matter is that the 1963 act has not resulted in pay equity for women.
Still, in 2014, on average, women are paid 79 cents for every dollar that men are paid in the American workplace.
Of course, the law is one thing.
The underlying facts of the rampant discrimination and hardship that American women from the early 1600s on have had to endure and thereby necessitating the 1963 law is something that we all should familiarize ourselves with.
The SCPR just completed reading Gail Collins' America's Women and recommends that readers of this blog series take time to read.
For anyone who thinks that our great nation has overcome this blight, needs to think again.
In 2009, population demographics showed that women outnumbered men 158.6 million to 151.4 million. And there is no reason that the tilt to a distinct majority women is not growing.
One danger in citing national statistics is that you, I and our neighbors might think that here in "good ole Stark County" there is very little if any gender employment discrimination going on.
Already, the SCPR believes that this blog's series is showing that the fact of the matter is that there are pockets of real and substantial differences in how men are paid depending on what department of Stark County government one is looking at.
Of course, the only place that information is readily available to assess is in government. There is no right to obtain data from the "private sector" as to what the pay scales are between males/females as there is in the public sector. Accordingly, we have no choice but to rely on national statistical studies to get a feel for what is going on locally among privately owned entities. And there is no reason to believe that the Stark County private sector varies significantly from the national scene.
THE STARK COUNTY ENGINEER'S OFFICE
In today's look at Stark County government, we get an up close look at the personification of a department of government that is indeed "a man's world:" the Stark County Engineer's office headed by elected engineer Keith Bennett.
It appears that there are NO WOMEN ENGINEERS in the employment of the Stark County Engineers.
It is common knowledge clearly evidenced by available data that engineering is clearly the domain of men.
From a report entitled - Field of Bachelor's Degree 2009 (American Community Survey/U.S. Census Bureau) - the following:
Sex Distribution Within Field of Degree
The sex distribution varied across detailed fields of degree (Figure 2). Although 49 percent of bachelor’s degree holders were male, men were a clear majority in some fields. Engineering was the most male-dominated field, with 87 percent of these graduates being men. The physical and related sciences and computers, mathematics, and statistics were the second and third most heavily male fields. Two-thirds or more of their degree holders were men. (emphasis added)A ten year old report indicates that at the time (2004): according to the National Society of Professional Engineers in 2004, there were approximately 192,900 female engineers throughout the country, compared with over 1,515,000 men.
While given the number of women in engineering dictates that there are going to be very few women at the Stark County engineering department of government, but NO WOMEN ENGINEERS is unacceptable and the county commissioners need to encourage Engineer Bennett (and, of course, Bennett needs to spur himself) to recruit women to hire-in down on Southway Street, Southwest.
THE STARK COUNTY CORONER
Back in January, Coroner P.S. Murthy was in to see the commissioners (with Forensic Coordinator Amanda Archer) and he got into a fuss of sort with them about projected pay increases.
The SCPR's take on his "in-your-face" to the commissioners is that at least the highest paid increase was to a female employee.
He may be the only county official who has that feather in his cap.
According to the data that the SCPR obtained from the Stark County auditor: December, 2012 compared to April 17, 2014, secretary/transcriptionist Lois Miller received upwards of a 16% increase.
Good for her.
However, readers should note that Murthy has all men working in professional level jobs.
Accordingly, no women are in the top paid jobs. So far in the SCPR study of Stark County departments of government, most of the departments have a woman or two in the top eschelons. But not the Stark County coroner's office.
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