[Critique Group 1] Cleora's piece for 5/26/21

[sitting.duck at springmail.com]

496 words
Worthy of Their Hire
by C. S. Boyd

What is equal pay for the same work. If two people make a product with the same material and workmanship, but one makes it in 15 minutes and the other requires 30 minutes, is it equal work? If two people make the same type of item in the same amount of time, but one person's item is not as well made, should both be paid the same?

We hear much these days about some groups not being paid as much as others for the same work. Our first response is likely that people should receive the same pay for doing the same work. I would have agreed a few years ago, but now I wonder. I've been using care givers for 20 plus years, and I find that they mostly receive the same pay for showing up, they do not all provide the same work for that pay. Some put their mind to their work and try their best to do as much as they can. Others take 3 shifts to do the work another does in one shift. Some will be careful to do the job right, others will make careless mistakes, and then the care receiver has to pay for the time it takes for them to correct the error.

I find that when men serve as care givers, they approach the job as a number of tasks to be completed as well and as quickly as possible. Most women approach the job more like a "ladies" day out" and the tasks are just something to help pass the time rather than an important job to be done. They waste a lot of time and usually do not complete everything that may be on the list. In my experience, the male care givers are worth more and should be paid more than the female workers.

Salaries pay people for the job, but leaves the worker open to employers that add more and more work without fair compensation. Hourly pay allows workers to not do their best work while still getting paid for doing the job. Maybe the long centuries of women staying at home to care for children and the house has left them with the mental idea that one or two tasks completed in a day is good enough, and men had a job to get done and put their mind and body to work to complete it as soon as possible. What we need is a system that rewards people for doing the best work they can as efficiently as possible. 

Many women, I'm know, do the same quality of work as a man in the same job, but there are enough that don't to set the standard of pay for all. The same is true with other groups that struggle for equal opportunity in the work place. The ones that sluff off and perform poorly, set the low standard of opportunity for all.