Solutions 3: Gender Pay Inequity Issues
In my last Problems paper, I identified three factors that contribute to the pay gap between men and women in the workforce. These included mentorship, negotiation, and parental constraints. In this work, I intend to suggest possible solutions to these microscopic aspects of the larger problem.
According to the research I examined in Problems 3, I found that while more women are getting an education, they are making up a disproportionately low proportion of the upper ranks in the corporate ladder. One reason for this problem is the lack of women mentors of high management.
I suggest developing a non-profit organization that takes volunteers from among women of high management positions who would dedicate a portion of their time each week to meet with women aspiring to achieve the top level positions of the organization in which they desire to work. Such women would be able to share valuable advice, experiences, contacts, opportunities, and much more. Such networking and relationship development will greatly enhance promotions, salary negotiations, and overall success in the careers of women in the workforce seeking to crash through the glass ceiling. This will also fix the negotiation problem.
To clarify, I think that the problem with mentorship among women today is that few women occupy the high level posts in their respective organizations and so mentoring opportunities are not very great and women in lower management positions cannot see themselves in the high ranking positions. Having role models in any career is important and the lack of them contributes to lack of progression into the higher ranks. Further, research indicates that women tend to benefit the most from women mentors of high rank. The aim of the organization I intend to introduce will be to organize mentoring opportunities in one place so that everyone can derive the maximum benefit.
To add some style to this idea, I suggest the program be named along the lines of “Tea with Advisors.” The idea is to have the mentors sit down with protege at a location (maybe with the frequency of once per week or greater) of their choice, talk, and develop effective personal and business relationships. They may have tea or breakfast or something like that also. They might write down what they accomplished or discussed for that day on a sheet to be submitted to or collected by other volunteers. This will be a measure of the progress the group has made. Another possibility is that mentors hold extended “office hours” for a few hours each week as do professors of CCNY currently do.
What if their schedules do not fit? Ideally, they will find a time and place that is suitable for them and they can consistently devote time to at least once a week. If necessary, a Skype-based contact system can be developed but nothing can replace near-distance human interaction. If they need a place to meet, they can use one of the rooms within the organization’s building (headquarters). The organization itself will run various workshops to aid in the career development of aspiring women workers. As a volunteer-based organization, mentors will be attracted by opportunity to aid in women’s empowerment in the workplace and protege will be attracted by opportunity to meet role models.
As far as mothers and fathers taking off time from work to child-rear, I think the best idea is a policy system for paid leave.
References:
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/report/2015/02/04/105983/men-fathers-and-work-family-balance/
http://chicagopolicyreview.org/2014/08/21/advancing-women-in-the-workplace-through-a-gender-targeted-approach-to-workforce-development/
http://www.wowonline.org/women-and-work-project/
Wales Capital Questions
1. Can you give examples of how sustainable business exists in a fragmented form today? What is the actual problem Wales Capital is trying to solve? Is it a widespread and destructive problem?
2. Could you explain crowdfunding in some detail?
New Women, New Yorkers Questions
1. How did you find volunteers?
2. What are your sources for funding and maintaining financial stability?
Future of Work Solutions
In my previous post, the two problems I posed were the unethical business practices of corporations due to flawed corporate structure and the growing trend toward hiring adjunct professors that are underpaid and overworked.
To address the first problem, I will not suggest a whole new corporate structure or substructure. In my previous post, I explained that it was the priority of maintaining shareholder value that led to unethical business practices such as trashing of the environment and underpaying of workers. Shareholder value is the “sum of all strategic decisions that affect the firm’s ability to efficiently increase the amount of free cash flow over time.” In other words, shareholder value is value assigned to a shareholder on the basis of wise investments and good returns of investments. The idea is that if a company builds value, the stock price will eventually reflect that value. In order to stay competitive and to generate a profit, companies must take shareholder value into account.
A good way to address the problem I posed is to find a way to make being environmentally responsible a means by which one can increase shareholder value by a substantial degree. This is already in the works with budding innovative corporations that are developing environmentally and socially responsible solutions to various issues people are facing throughout the world. I have been reading about an idea, which is already being applied in certain sectors by certain corporations, called Circular Economy, which involves examining the designs of how things are made and to minimize waste. Ideally, the materials that construct our goods will be perpetually reusable. But, this requires that research be done to investigate the designs of things to make them more efficient and renewable. So, I suggest that a subcommittee be formed that deals with examination of the designs and processes that construct the goods corporations seek to sell to reduce the amount of wasted energy in such systems.
Another problem I seek to address is the adjunct phenomenon. According to the American Association for University Professors, adjunct professors make up more than half of all faculties and 76% of instructional positions are filled on a temporary basis. Adjunct professors are underpaid, overworked, have no benefits, and have no job security. Just last month, February 25, was National Adjunct Walkout Day, in which many adjunct professors walked out of work to protest horrible working conditions.
The reason that adjunct professors are being oppressed is that universities are pressured to keep tuition low, keep enough teachers to run their classes, and there is overwhelming competition for faculty positions that are few in number relative to the people who want to fill these positions. Due to all of these factors, adjunct professors are not being paid enough, have to teach multiple classes that can sometimes be large distances from one another, and are trapped waiting for tenure-track positions to open up and accept them.
To address this problem, I suggest conducting a bake sale to raise money for struggling adjuncts and advertising to demonstrate to the government that this is a problem that the public finds important to address. The hope is that this will lead to greater government funding for higher education.
References:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/one-professors-american-dream-teaching-turned-american-nightmare/
https://chroniclevitae.com/news/762-the-adjunct-crisis-is-everyone-s-problem
http://www.online-phd-programs.org/adjunct/
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/04/the-adjunct-professor-crisis/361336/
http://adjunctcrisis.com/
http://www.newappsblog.com/adjunct-faculty-and-hyper-exploitation/
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/2014/07/18/guest-post-adjunct-instructors-petition-for-change/
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/02/19/research-aaas-meeting-notes-difficult-job-market-academic-science
http://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/reference-material/what-is-an-adjunct-professor-and-why-do-colleges-hire-them/
http://www.toxicsaction.org/problems-and-solutions/waste
http://www.occupy.com/article/trash-tpp-why-its-time-revolt-against-worst-trade-agreement-history
http://www.globalissues.org/article/55/corporations-and-the-environment
http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/faq_shareholder_stakeholder_perspective.html
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/shareholder-value.asp
https://hbr.org/2011/10/ceos-must-understand-what-crea/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-kennell/recycling-opens-the-door-_b_6164314.html
https://www.google.com/search?q=february+25+adjuncts&oq=february+25+adjuncts&aqs=chrome..69i57.5511j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=91&ie=UTF-8
Problems 2 Future of Work
In class, we have been discussing contemporary issues with the current workplace and we have been examining how working conditions in the future may be impacted with current trends in working.
One contemporary issue is that there are many corporations today that trash the environment. According to a United Nations study on the activities of the world’s 3,000 biggest companies, firms would lose over one third of their profits if they were forced to pay for use, loss, and damage of environment. The first speaker, Oliver Libby, revealed to us that the reason for this is that, in the United States, stakeholder value is the highest priority. To protect this, corporations will engage in unethical behaviors. Such unethical behaviors include underpaying workers and trashing the environment. However, that speaker had also revealed that this situation will fail to last because with the coming of new businesses that are environmentally responsible and a new generation of environmentally-aware people, businesses cannot afford to be environmentally irresponsible or unethical in any way. Otherwise, people may not be willing to invest in such companies. As that speaker had said, “Would you rather invest in a company that makes lots of money but trashes the environment or in a company that makes a little less money but is environmentally responsible?” This question was directed at the future of New York and it is clear that the answer leans overwhelmingly toward the latter option. Our last speaker, Debera Johnson, echoed the comments of the first speaker during her talk.
Another issue that needs to be addressed in the topic of work is the growing trend towards temporary jobs, especially with regard to adjunct professors. Today, part-time instructors account for over half of all faculty at the nation’s public and private institutions for higher education. My current differential equations (a 300 level course) professor is an adjunct professor making about $3,000 per semester. This is a horrible financial situation because it is questionable as to whether or not he will even be able to sustain himself and it is clear that he is being paid below minimum wage. This is a horrendous problem that needs to be addressed. According to Prof. Binz Scharf, the reason for this rising trend in hiring adjunct professors is that universities recognize that a tenured professor is a multimillion dollar investment. A tenured professor cannot be removed from office and is consistently paid, with increasing pay with seniority. It is no question, then, that some form of social innovation is needed to address this problem. Something needs to change in the current structure of academic employment to improve this dismal situation. This is also of personal interest to me because I have plans for working in the university setting someday.
Two contemporary issues in work that I feel deserve a good deal of attention is the current corporate structure and how it leads to unethical business practices as well as the current trend of employing adjunct professors at universities, who are underpaid and treated as second-class academic citizens.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/feb/18/worlds-top-firms-environmental-damage
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2014-04-16/growing-reliance-adjunct-professors
http://www.academia.edu/2100902/The_Work_of_the_University_The_Adjunct_Phenomenon
Questions for Designer Debera Johnson
1. The City Farm and Fish program looks interesting to me. Could you tell me more about how the City Farm and Fish method is an improvement over the old-world way of bringing in outsourced fish and through trucking in urban areas? This point was not very clear to me on the website.
2. When talking about the City Farm and Fish program, I examined the schematic provided of the design that CFF uses to provide fish with clean water and use fish droppings for fertilizer, which can then produce food for the fish. This looks sustainable but how does this work in reality? Where is it happening? Is the CFF doing any other projects like this (i.e. using solar panels as implied in the website) and can you give a description of these?
Questions – Topic II
How does the Brooklyn Fashion and Design Accelerator constitute what makes a suitable project for its facilities? How long are Venture Fellows and Members allowed to keep their spaces?
Your website describes the BF+DA as a hub for “ethical fashion and design”. How is this defined by BF+DA? How is it determined if incoming projects and designers are “ethical”?
Questions for NYC Social Innovation Center
1. Can you describe in-depth what kinds of actual social innovations have been developed or will be developed at this institution and also at what stages these projects are in?
2. According to the website, NYS SIC is using 100,000 square feet. What is being done with all that area? Also, how can people such as ourselves get involved (can people with little capital or with inability to pay large monthly fees get involved?)?
“Cops See it Differently” Podcast
On the way home from class today I turned on This American Life, a weekly podcast I subscribe to, and found that this week’s episode is totally relevant to our discussion about the future of policing. I’d really encourage you to listen!
You can stream it here. This American Life is a story-driven podcast, it isn’t always about politics, but I think this week’s episode blends stories and politics pretty effectively. It is called “Cops See it Differently” and it tackles questions of police brutality from the perspective of police officers (but with a healthy critical eye). I’d love to hear what you think about it.
