I QUIT!!!

On Mon, 15 Jan 1996, Boylan P wrote:

> 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
> >
>