I am sure that your very interesting data is true in relation to federal
Government policies and practice, and is very useful to me in respect of
both my international Human Resources Management in the Arts and Museums
Master's course here and for wider comparison purposes.  However, there
is no obligation on other employers to follow such scales and standards
in most countries, nor in this country nothing to stop even national
museums deliberately recruiting people wildly over-qualified in relation
to the salary grade fixed in advance for the vacancy.  (We have some
national museums employing people at doctoral level on high level
academic curatorial work but employing them on a salary scale for which
the minimum entry qualification is just four middle grades in the national
age 16 school certificate.

In fact, even these guidelines will disappear at the end of March as all
national museums and galleries are being totally "de-coupled" from what
is left of the national civil service salary grades and conditions on 1
April 1996.

The other growing trend, at least in Anglo-Saxon countries is towards a
rapid and massive widening of salary differentials between the lowest and
highest paid employees throughout both public and private sectors.  For
example, while in France, Germany, Scandinavian countries, even Japan, the
highest paid levels of professional or senior manager in a for-profit,
governmental or non-profit enterprise may receive no more than two to three
times the salary of the newly qualified professional, and perhaps no more
than five times the pay of and unskilled manual worker in the
organisation, differentials at least twice these are now common in the UK
(and I believe in the USA as well) and are widening markedly every year.
(I am sure that the mysterious three or four directors reporting quarter
of a million dollar salaries to the annual AAMD survey are not paying
a quarter to a third of this - say $60K to $80K  - as entry level
salaries to recently qualified professionals.)

We even had a senior UK government minister who expicitly argued in the
late 1980s that pay has to be cut to increase incentives for the lowest
paid (to make them work harder) but increased markedly to increase
incentives for the top management and professional levels.  (He never
explained where the cross-over point occurred in this remarkable
process!).  However, the effect sought is being achieved by stealth,
through a combination of twice inflation pay rises for senior business
executives (whose pay forms the benchmark for top salary comparisions),
below inflation rises (or total freezes) for the lower paid, plus regressive
tax policies greatly increasing the total taxation of the low paid with
even greater percentage cuts for the highest earners - hence the near
doubling of differentials in just 16 years.  (As a final step to
establish a new benchmark before the national salary civil service scales
are - in effect - abolished on 1 April, the discretionary "performance
related" maximum of the highest civil service salary grade has just been
increased by 45%.)

Patrick Boylan

============================================



On Fri, 12 Jan 1996, Dick Morris wrote:

> My job as a classification specialist with the Federal
> Government (one who evaluates and sets pay levels for
> Federal jobs) allows me to persue my avocation as a
> volunteer and board member of a museum. I can't speak to the
> salary levels paid to museum professionals across the
> country, but the assumption underlying this thread is
> incorrect. If the salary level is correct, the position
> listed is NOT a professional position. $15,000 per year for
> a full-time position equates to the pay for an entry level
> GS-3 in the Federal Government. This would compare to a
> clerk-typist, receptionist, or technical support person with
> pretty limited experience. To qualify for this level, a
> person would need little or no experience above a high
> school diploma.
>
> Most journey level professional positions (i.e., requires an
> appropriate degree and several years of experience for
> qualification) such as biologists, engineers, and
> librarians, start at the GS-9 level (around $30,000). An
> entry level professional going into a training position
> could be as low as GS-5 (degree, no experience) ($20,000).
>
> Technical support positions do not require a degree to
> qualify. Most of the positions I work with typically range
> from GS-4 to GS-7 ($18-26,000). Many of the people I am
> familiar with are degreed and are using the positions to get
> work experience and exposure to make themselves better
> qualified for professional positions.
>
> I hope this very short course clarifies things a little.
>
> Sorry - I don't have any inside track for getting a Federal
> job. With the ongoing downsizing and turmoil for Federal
> employees, few permanent positions are being filled from
> outside and many of us aren't very secure that we'll have a
> job this time next year.
>
> Dick Morris
> Volunteer and Board Member,
> Museum of Alaskan Transportation and Industry
>