A7 - Sunday, May 73, 1982 - North Shore News

SE nail bo x

Wrong USE of percentages is the problem

Dear Editor:

Your editorial about the

“Percentage myth” (May 5)

ts — if you will pardon the
expression — 100% correct.
We should indeed be more
discriminating in our use of
nercentages, especially
when determining pay.

The “contract battle”
involving the B.C.
Government Employees
Union that your refer to is
nothing new. The BCGEU is
performing its proper
function in trying to protect
the real wages of its
members. But it would be
inequitable for union
members to be fully in-
sulated from the effects of
inflation, when = other
groups, who lack the
coercive power of the strike
threat, are not. If everyone
were on the same escalator,
there would be no winners or
losers in the inflation game,

but that is not the case.
Many people who are not
union members are not on
any escalator, while
members of different unions
are on separate escalators,
moving at different speeds.
Higher wages are not, in

themselves, a problem,
provided thay are ac-
companied by higher

productivity. What feeds the
flames of inflation are wage
increases that are not
matched by imcreases in

output.
If we accept the
Proposition that BCGEU

wages should be raised to
mitigate some or all of the
effects of inflation, we still
face the problem that
nobody can predict the
future rate of inflation with
certainty.

When claiming pay in-
creases, unions use whatever
Statistical evidence will best

Writer de-fogs

Dear Editor:

Bil Bell published an
article in the May 16 News
(“Writers who get lost in a
fog™). He said I was mad at
my editors, because they
wouldn't let me write a grade
3 textbook at a grade 5 level.
He thought I should know
better. I do.

. rigid
formula, the “Fry Scale” .
was being used to judge
reading level. My editors
don’t like the Fry Scale any
more than I do. The scale
says nothing about content,
interest, or vocabulary. It
just counts syllables and
sentences. Bureaucrats love
ut. With the scale, or
Gunning’s Fog Index, they
don't have to use their own
judgment.

Obviously, no text should
be too hard for its readers.
But it should be challenging.
Give kids something too
casy, and they'll be rightly
insulted by “baby = stuff”.
Robert Heinlein, whose
novels for kids have sold
millions of copies for over 30
years, always pul some
“tough” words and ideas in

them. He knows his young
readers like wrestling with

them. (Heinlein says he
writes simply only for
adults.)

Mr. Bell asserts that he’s
no writer, and tries his best
to prove it. He’s not much of
a listener or reader either.
He misunderstood me. He
garbled a phrase I used
several times (“dumb down”
turned to “dummy up”). He
didn’t even get the name of
my course right (Magazime
Article Writing, not Selling
Your Writing) — though it’s
in the college calendar and
also appears a couple of
times a year in the News
itself.

Actually, I wish he'd take
my course. By the Pry Scale,
he’s writing at Grade 12,
good enough for Atlantic
Monthly. If he can dumb it
down a couple of grades, he
could break into Reader's
Digest. And if he can get as
simple as this letter (Grade 5
on the Fry scale), he can give
advice on writing to college
teachers, school trustees,
and novelists.

Crawford Kilian
North Vancouver

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support their case: to keep
pace with inflation, to match
pay levels in other (higher-
paid) enterprises, to match
across-the-board percentage
increases won by other
unions, and so on.

Employers generally react
defensively. Lacking a more
rational response, they look
for external statistics to
argue that the union’s claim
is excessive.

The solution lies in placing
less reliance on external
comparisons and relating

pay more to the cir-
cumstances of the partcular
enterprise. In the private
sector, jnstead of adjusting
pay in advance, in expection
of unpredictable increases in
living costs, pay can be

adjusted retroactively,
through _ profit-sharing
schemes, on the basis of

known results.

This solution is not
feasible in the public sector,
where the employer's ability
to pay is not determined by
market forces. Here,

Misery teaches

~ FROM PAGE A6 _

wise, this determination
ought not to lead us to
demand that those services
be provided by the public
sector itself. The public
sector is virtually incapable
of doing more with less, of
economizing without cutting
back services and of
maintaining continuity of

service in times when
financial certainty  dis-
appears.

intentioned desire to provide
low income Canadians with
access to essential services
via government production
of those services, has
threatened the very lives of
our sick and the education to
which our children have
access. Hopefully we will
emerge from the current
recession with a renewed
faith in the ability of the
private sector to cope with

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economic scarcity and a
relearned cynicism and
skepticism of the ability of
governments produce.

(Dr. Walker is Director of
Vancouver's Fraser In-
Suitute.)

retroactive adjustments
could be based on the
general rate of actual wage
increases in the private
sector.

RETURNED

The problem does not lie Many thanks to the
in percentages and averages
themselves, but in their
improper use.

K.W. Woodhead

West Vancouver

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May 14th; and
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