Quality pay
Sir: The problem of a recurring series of wage demands for unions which results in the frequent disruption of society must lie solved. Because society demands increasing organisation of the many and varied skills of the population there is bound to be continuing conflict between each group and the rest of society. The unions play a fundamental role in representing the interests of groups of workers and in presenting their cases for increases in pay. The inherited systems for negotiating pay deals is increasingly resulting in discomfort for all. The following solution is perhaps appropriate. Each job should be assessed in terms of each of the qualities required to carry it out. Qualities such as skill, training, danger (short term through injury and long term through health hazards), discomfort, education, training, ardousness, leadership, intelligence, experience, necessity, rarity of ability and emotional qualities immediately come to mind. No doubt there are many others. Each of the qualities required for each job could be assessed in comparison with other jobs and given a score in terms of a number of units. The pay for the job would then be proportional to the total score. The role of the unions would be in bargaining for the assessment of the scores for their workers and in possibly increasing the weighting for particular qualities which may be considered important for the survival of the human race or the nation. Increasing the score for a particular quality in one group would require a compensating decrease in the score for that quality for other workers. Annual pay awards could be implemented by increasing the monetary value of one unit of the score.
Allowance for the underprivileged would have to be made. The simplest means would be to allot a basic number of units to each person. The same would apply to allowances for children, housewives, the elderly and those suffering from incapacity.
Such a scheme no doubt suffers from defects. The feeling that society has assessed one's value in terms of a single number may not be welcome to many. However, is this much different from the situation that exists today? P. V. Bertrand 54 Mackenzie Road, Moseley, Birmingham
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