In Guru’s blog (‘Italian pay chaos inspires new equality theory’, Personneltoday.com/gurublog, 5 May), he suggests that part-timers don’t deserve pro-rata pay parity, as they spend a disproportionate amount of time doing nothing.
He then goes on to say: “Of course, it’s beyond Guru’s current remit to extend this logic to the realms of women and equal pay. He did try to consult with a female colleague, but could not locate one as they were all in the kitchen area ‘multitasking’.”
However, this means they are probably doing ‘something’, at the same time as doing ‘nothing’. Therefore, the summation of the additional ‘somethings’ that they are continually doing (because we all know that women multitask constantly) over and above the lower level of ‘somethings’ the men are able to do, will cancel out most of the ‘nothings’ that the women are doing as larger portions of their part-time jobs.
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So, taking his theory to its logical end, most women working part-time should in fact get full-time pay (or more). Don’t you think?
Sue Hewitt, development consultant, Milecastle Consultancy
