If you're curious about what Kamala Harris means by advancing "equality" in America, look no further than the U.K.'s labor market under the Equality Act 2010. Over a decade after its enactment, the legislation began yielding the results envisioned by its champion, then left-leaning Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Last month, after a six-year legal struggle, more than 3,500 current and former employees of the retail chain Next won a claim for back pay of some $40 million, when a labor board determined that the primarily female store staff should have received pay "equal" to that of the predominantly male warehouse workers.
Next argued that higher wages for warehouse staff were dictated by broader market rates, over which the retail chain had no control. But the tribunal dismissed this argument.
Interestingly, the court found no evidence of direct or indirect discrimination in pay between male and female employees in the same roles, nor any "conscious" or "subconscious" influence of gender on pay decisions.
Despite that, it ruled against the company because, according to attorney Elizabeth George, who represented the workers, "Next could have afforded to pay a higher rate but chose not to, and the reason for that was purely financial."
Labor boards in the U.K. can now make discretionary decisions that might financially ruin any company. For example, they might rule that women in sales or customer service should earn the same pay as computer engineers in a software company, regardless of market demand or their contributions to the bottom line.
This trend extends beyond private businesses. Massive back-pay claims have nearly bankrupted two of the country's largest city councils: Birmingham and Glasgow.
In Birmingham, labor boards ruled that roles traditionally held by men, such as garbage collectors, were "equal" to female-dominated roles like cleaners and caterers. This resulted in a $955 million settlement — equivalent to the council's entire annual budget.
Eventually, the situation led to the downgrade of hundreds of roles held by men and prompted strike action by the garbage collectors' union.
Court documents from the Next lawsuit reveal how labor boards might arrive at such absurd outcomes.
According to the files, Next offered all store employees the opportunity to switch to warehouse jobs. One plaintiff is quoted admitting during cross-examination that she found the warehouse role unappealing unless it paid "a lot more money."
Yet the court dismissed that evidence, arguing it would equivalate to adopting "an unfettered free market model of supply and demand."
In the U.K., labor boards are replacing market forces in determining which jobs are "equal" and their appropriate pay. The Bolsheviks coined a term for this: "soviet."
Today, various forms of soviets are emerging in America, ranging from diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) committees to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) boards and potentially even death panels if progressives succeed in implementing single-payer healthcare.
These bodies often issue arbitrary rules, ostensibly in the interest of citizens, yet they rely on vague and frequently partisan criteria with little regard for the consequences.
The only consistent aspect of their decisions is that they aim not to foster a fairer or more efficient marketplace but rather to elevate the status of certain groups. This effectively serves as a means to confiscate profits and potentially capital.
Far from being the product of a grassroots blue-collar movement, the proponents of these new soviets use them as levers to control the social ascension of their preferred groups and to increase their influence over government. It is clear that these elites' allegiances lie more with their international counterparts than with their own country's working class, whom they often regard as backward and ignorant.
This bureaucratic overreach is escalating as the institutions underpinning the West's social contract crumble. Moreover, a progressive obsession with idealistic policies that upend the social order keeps gaining traction in the U.S. and Canada.
In Canada, the Human Rights Commission uses a system similar to the U.K.'s, where female-dominated roles earning less than their supposedly "equal" male-dominated counterparts are subject to arbitrary compensation adjustments.
Several U.S. states and cities have enacted similar laws. At the federal level, Democrats are championing the Paycheck Fairness Act, which limits employers' ability to justify pay disparities that are unrelated to gender.
In California, the Equal Pay Act empowers politically appointed bureaucrats and judges to determine which jobs are equivalent in terms of skill, effort, and responsibility.
These may seem like small steps, and Republican and a few remaining moderate Democrat-appointed judges are still managing to curb these excesses. However, it took 14 years for the U.K.'s Equality Act to begin to manifest its most problematic outcomes.
A presidency under Kamala Harris could significantly accelerate these developments on this side of the Atlantic.
Cauf Skiviers writes about philosophy, economics, politics, and things that lie between the inconceivable and the undesirable. His reports also appear at: https://cauf.substack.com. Read more of Cauf Skiviers' reports here.
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