Upscale wrote:

"Prometheus" wrote in message
Is that a bad thing? If a guy has worked at the same place for five
years, and still is as useless as the day he was hired - why would he
get paid more?

Not to disagree with your opinion, but there are some things that make the
long time employee more valuable, at least from the get go when hiring a new
person.

- New person takes time to train and has to prove himself. Working twice as
hard in the beginning, while laudable, doesn't state much since every new
employee works twice as hard in the beginning.
- Long time employee has assumedly proven that he's going to show up for
work.
- Long time employee has assumedly proven that he's trustworthy.
- Long time employee has the experienced the occasional operation problems
and how to accomplish something if there's a difficulty doing it the regular
way.
- If the long time employee has contact with customers, then he's going to
have developed a relationship with some or perhaps many of those customers.

Sure the long time employee could be lazy, untrustworthy and barely worth
his wages, but if that was true, then it's the management's problem for
keeping him as an employee. One could also argue that the long time employee
knows how to work the system, but anyway you slice it, there's always going
to be some advantages that the long time employee has over newer employees.

The upshot of all is always that labor is a cost of doing business--it's
required that the labor be cost-effective for the employer or there
won't be any long-term employment.

If productivity is improved, then there may be additional revenue
generated that can absorb increased wages, but these benefits are often
offset by rising costs in other areas.