Shouldn't equal pay for equal work mean in a scenario where the productivity is the same? So, it wouldn't really make sense to pay a woman less for that.
People often misunderstand the concept of employment.
Employment is a very simple concept. You are hired to fill a position. You are paid what the position is worth to the employer. It has absolutely nothing to do with how much effort an individual puts out.
Although a person with an expanded willingness to expend effort, or with a deeper set of skills, can effectively be contracted to adopt increased responsibilities - and therefor other positions that also have a value to the employer.
For example - I was able to take the place of control systems companies for one of my employers. I was paid extra when I did, because I was saving them money by not having to pay an outside company to take care of something I could easily do and document more thoroughly than said company would. I saw the increase in pay as being worth the effort I was expending, as it raised my standard of living.
On the other hand, people who are unwilling or incapable of expanding their endeavors into other positions are unlikely to find themselves being paid more, as they are simply being paid for a limited position.
Example - I recently took a job in fast food after moving. I am being moved around to gain experience on multiple stations. When it comes time for reviews - what is going to come up is the concept of pay. I am not just doing a single simple task - I can be moved around and am willing to work flexible schedules - which means a call to me saves managers tons of hassling over a position they are down. I am no longer simply being hired for a single position on the team - I am becoming a universal solution to manpower discrepancies.
I am more valuable to them than the kid who can only come in after school, who isn't motivated to take on new responsibilities, and who tends to be more self-absorbed in his actions (even the really good ones on night crew are just more self-absorbed because that is the mentality of teenagers - it will pass in time, but for the time being, their perspective on what employment is about is very different).
Now - is that worth $15 an hour to them? No.
Let's be honest - as employees, we are never going to insist our employer -not- give us a doubling of our wage or whatever. We want the maximum profit from our endeavors as we can get - but we have to keep in mind what is realistic from the position.
Now, that said, some of the older hats in the business have made the argument that we have a higher than necessary turnover because people who can run our registers can then turn right around and get nearly double the pay while working at another store. This makes putting a solid team together very difficult. Young adults who can take a lunch rush and turn it into a walk in the park will end up leaving in a few months to a year because the position doesn't pay enough to make it worth them staying - which means those positions are almost in a state of continual training and replacement.
I'm not convinced that simply increasing the wages would lead to them staying. It may secure solid people in those positions a little longer, but the fact is that a lot of young adults end up with some wanderlust and end up taking jobs in other towns, taking on jobs that offer new experiences more so than jobs that offer higher pay. The service industry is something only a few people really enjoy as a career-type decision.
And ultimately, what happens is people keep getting desperate for the job, while the employer becomes even more powerful because there is always that person who will do more for less, like immigrants.
This should be allowed to draw out to its conclusion.
If businesses continue to increase prices while hiring increasingly cheaper labor... eventually, what happens is the economy begins to slow down. People no longer have as much money to spend on goods and services, and will begin to contract their spending to the essentials, and choose the most cost-effective among those.
This means that businesses will be forced to lower their prices if they wish to see a return of their sales and profits. Smart business owners will undercut their competition in order to drive higher sales volume. Even if their per-sale profit is lower, their net profit is higher.
If I sell a million cookies for 1 penny more than it costs to produce each of them (labor included) - then I just made $10,000. If I sell a hundred cookies for a dollar more than it costs to produce each of them, then I made $100. If I'm charging $0.15 for each cookie in my first example, but $1.05 for my second because I'm using cheaper labor... who is actually 'winning' in this scenario? Even if I am selling to "the 1%" - assuming I am seeing 1% of the total market activity - I'm still only just breaking even with the guy who is only making a profit margin of 7% as compared to my profit margin of 2,000%
