Paulien

Argentina is WageIndicator country 16. Today we launched ElSalario. A group of smart looking journalist attended the press conference. ElSalario seems to be a perfect tool in Argentina, a country without wage data. ElSalario will fill the huge gap.

We do have a new tool: Vip Pay Check. We found out that the Pope gets less then the cleaning lady. But all others get more then all people (200,000) who completed questionnaires last year.

Today we launched a Women WageIndicator in Belgium.
A nice unique project. AS a woman you would never believe that a man is running this cool website. But, the boss is a man. And no one else could do this better then he.

Why? Check the website and realise that he got already a prize for the website of the year - the general WageIndicator.
Franci's secret: he talks with his wife about what she prefers.

Salary indications for cleaning ladies and highway truckers are good to have, though they may not make for very funny reading.

But wouldn’t it be big fun to know the salary of Guus Hidding? At least our Korean WageIndicator team is dying to know. They told me so over dinner in Seoul last week.

Remember that Hidding became world famous in Korea after leading its national football team out of the darkest hole almost to heaven – to the semi-final in the world championship 2002.
For this outstanding reason our Dutch visitors might be less interested to know, though he still is trainer and coach of league forerunner PSV. After returning to Holland from Korea I got in touch with PSV, still his employer.

And guess what? A mere 4 million euro a year (gross, nett, I really don’t care any more at this level). Not counting his side job, which is to repeat his Korean miracle with Australia in Germany next year.
And then there are bound to be some sponsor contracts. But I suppose that’s just a bonus for outstanding performances delivered and expected. How much would his basic income be in Korean Won? Almost 5 billion (at the present exchange rate) per annum. Which makes Guus into a billionaire!

The Korean WageIndicator exists!  And there are pretty good articles already about the concept! Like to read this one? Or take this one, this is even better!

So, and what is Equal Pay Taskforce? Is it the Pay Police? Or Paycheck Police? Is it the ultimate Paycheck Freak Force?  Of course not.  All these wordings sound as if  we would set up another body of controll freaks. No way - as I am the chairperson of this task force.

But what about  the task itself? Straight - close the pay gap between men/women, black/white. Simply because it is unfair.

Inequality in The Netherlands?

You bet! The Task Force Equal Pay in The Netherlands has to bridge one of the largest pay gaps on the continent.

I was asked to become the chairperson of the Dutch Equal Pay Taskforce. The result: I will work 24 in stead of only 12 hours a day. Does this mean that I - as a woman - will earn more per hour or less? I don't know, yet.

But you can be sure, there is not much time left to spend the money. A pitty, beacuse I love shopping.

Now and then we do have tough technical times. Last weeks we added a new engine, more memory and on top we added more problems. It is like with people. Some people love improvements. They adapt easily. Others – like machines – hate improvements. They act like crazy rebels first weeks and then finally they accept. Hope so this time. While writing this, one of our engineers is on his way – by bike – to the server hotel. I am sure – the questionnaire engines are up again in 10 minutes.

We enter a new phase in the WageIndicator project. The top of the Belgium confederation of trade unions blesses our salary information before it is launched.
We trust the thousands of anonymous people who share 20 minutes of their precious time with us. So far their data is extremely reliable. On top – we clean the data, weigh and compare it with other statistics. Why we do this? Just because we prefer academic perfection.

Last Friday we passed a new test. Our salary checker was given the green light by the political top of a trade union. Trade unions are in most countries involved in the WageIndicator project. And they may – of course - say: “We will not launch the salary checker you made – on our website.” But trade union boards are – of course not - in the position to change salary information given by the public, cleaned, checked and weighed by academics. But they may refuse to publish it on their website. What a relief! In Belgium they don’t refuse! The confederation checked the data and gave an OK. The wage information delivered through the WageIndicator concept is more reliable then from other salary indicators in Belgium, they say! Lucky Belgians.

Actually – this doesn’t mean that we are free from mistakes. But we make a point of finding and deleting them.

Our international team is growing fast. It creates odd situations. Specially because we live mainly virtual. And funny enough - the more we live online - the more important gender becomes. So, let me come to the point. Youngmo? Is it a men or a women. This was a very irrelevant question from one of our programmers. If you create a website for a Korean person, you don’t need to know that Yougmo is a nice and friendly man! Bharti our Paycheck journalist wanted to know whether Fons is a woman. “Yes, she writes as a woman.” Well, Fons our Chinese project leader is a man. And since last week we do have a financial manager. She has got a lovely name from her parents: Tendayi Matimba. For me it is clear this is a girls name. But Tendayi knows better. She likes to be introduced as a woman. “Sometimes they think I am a man. I am not”, she said. Her picture will be soon online.

Completing a questionnaire online is pretty boring. Apart from the funny question: “What do you expect to happen the next 12 months”. You can make your choice. One of the options is: “ Yes, I hope I win the lottery in the next 12 months” . But in general it is boring. Specially when there are many questions. That’s why we started 4 years ago with offering a trip to Africa for 1 out of thousands of people who completed a questionnaire. So far 3 persons won the price. (new winners come soon) And as far as I know none of first 3 winners used the price. Why? In the beginning there was a reason for it. We couldn’t afford an air ticket. Only a trip in Africa (1400 euro). But even then. Traveling in South Africa seems to be so exciting that you have a stronge urge to complete a questionnaire – even when there are more then 120 questions. But an extremely adventurous offer to see the best places – that’s scary. You just say 'yes' to lottery, and ' no'  to your price!

For us, no problem. We hope we can offer the trip every year to a person or family in a WageIndicator country. If winners don’t want the trip – we see it as mainly their problem. And who is paying? A good friend in Capetown. He loves South Africa. He offers the trip for the winners. Is it benefiting him or his company? Not sure. May be.  At least he deserves – no complaints – and a lovely present as soon as the first WageIndicator winners dare to enjoy his adventurous offer! See below the pictures which make you enjoying to complete a questionnaire and dreaming of lotteries.

 Attractive pictures:

* First picture 2001 - 2003 

* Second picture 2004 -

A Sunday in January 2004. Our house was packed with women. They came for dinner. My husband, a friend and my son had to leave. Women only. The aim of the happening: how to create a new female movement; how to organize a festival in Amsterdam at Women's day - March 8? We spent that evening eating, drinking and debating. Is feminism dead? What about Islam? Is it possible to talk about labour market issues in a nice way? How to discuss poverty – yet be cool and hip? And: who is waiting for trade union issues? How to combine all those different preferences in art, literature, music, etc. ? And finally: how to create a vibrant atmosphere with and for women who are sometimes deeply bitter?
Well, we did it. The women at our dinner table sponsored the initial budget for the festival, unique for The Netherlands. Because we – being Dutch – think it is the job of the state to sponsor festivals. Anyway. We – as Founding Mothers – paid a company 10,000 for the initial start of the festival, held this weekend in Amsterdam. It is a great success. Thanks to a very unconventional, extremely experienced company, called Cultuurfabriek, factory for production of cultural events. Tip: you need to do the impossible? Call them: +31 20 624 63 80, ask for Jannet. And surely, the WageIndicator is one of the many topics and issues.

Early in the morning - people in The Netherlands either sleep or stay in traffic jams - I am in chat boxes. To start working at that time is cosy. Although my whole family and dog are still a sleep, they are up and sharp in India, Korea and Amsterdam. In one box it is about text for an application in a WageIndicator, in an other one it is about comments on my log. The most problematic one this morining was with a journalist friend in Amsterdam. She asked me whether I could introduce her to couples who had been through a heavy crisis in their marriage. Crises because of money, alcohol, love affaires or problems with their kids. Bluntly I told her: “ All my friends do have those problems ”.  Her answer: “ Just give me your address book”. Why does she need this? For interviews for a Dutch magazine! Oops. Not sure if friends will like to be quoted on these daily life issues.

The Dutch minimum wage checker learned me already some time ago while creating that application: 2 cholate bars is the same as one hour work for a 15 year old boy or girl. Well, today I had one chocolate bar. (I prefer Mars Delight.). My son Manno (11) pinched  the other one.

We both were not hungry. But in fact we ate twice the income of one day of an unskilled labourer in West Bengal. HE earns Rps 51 a day (1 euro, 4 cents). SHE ears less for the same work: Rps 46.56. This is the official minimum wage.

You want to check my information:

Minimum Wage Checker The Netherlands

Minimum Wage checker India (beta version)

About a year ago, we tried to bring the  European WageIndicators online. Easy piece of cake for English and Dutch language. As soon as it came to Spanish, Polish, German, French, Finnish it was far more difficult then our programmers explained us. They were mumbling about ASCII, Unicode and mainly telling me: don’t worry. Well some weeks later it was all clear. Language on the same server in the same technique is a conflict. As I know already from our E-Unions project; a web workers database in 5 languages. Lessons number 1 from that project: Russian, French and Spanish don’t want to be at one and the same server. We got a new chance this year to solve the language conflict. Now we do have a system online which works for at least 40 languages. So, we don’t face any problem in Polish, German, Finnish or Spanish. Thanks to Plone and Zope: no language conflict anymore. There is only one issue left. The Polish and Danish code books extracted from our new online questionnaires still look like a spaghetti online.

Since yesterday we do have the experience that it is easier to start a ESF project (EU grant), then to finish it. To finish it means – being a bookkeeper, controller, secretary, time sheets freak at the highest bureaucratic - EU - level.
We made it. 100 percent.
Proud? Yes. It is like you can survive in the European jungle of 2005. I found it more difficult then sleeping in caves, tents, on pavements, in boats or close to a scorpion. And why doing this?
Well the ESF project was an interesting and funny project. Funny? We can show you how many quality hours a truck driver or a nurse spends with his/her spouse. Check the TimeIndicator. The application is - of course - built on WageIndicator data.

Early in the morning when I open my mail box, I see right away where the action is. To day it is simple. The European questionnaire server had a bad night. No show. And a lot of angry-email. But the Indian server in Bangalore was OK. I can show you how people in India run their households. A lot of variety. See the picture of the questionnaire.

Last night - Dutch time 9 PM - we launched WageIndicator.org in a new style. This new website gives us the option to write weblogs, create newsletters. And now we can upload whole libraries - if we want.

Together with this new website - we have chosen - for a fresh logo. Here it is!

 

Tomorrow more about other WageIndicators, projects or bugs in our 32.000 fresh new rules.

Since last Saturday night we do have a new WageIndicator Questionnaire technique. And what does this mean? A nicer look& feel? Of course. But the most important features will stay invisible for you. Only the datamanagers, academics and programmers will enjoy these innovations. What will or can they see and check: 16 different language options, 800 items, 400 rules per item. This makes in total roughly 32.000 rules (800x400 rules). 
What?  Yes.
One question in the questionnaire will have 16 different language options, it will have rules  for SPSS labels,  whether it is an obligatory question etc etc.  In total it makes an average of 400 rules per item. Are you still there? Don't be surprised if there is now and then a mistake or bug. In general the system is OK.
The Dutch team can have a good sleep again after 8 months of nightmares.