What Constitutes Fair And Non-discriminatory Pay?

[PadrePioOfPietrelcino]

So I had a discussion today with a nice ladyI met while decorations the Church for Advent. We started talking about compensation and such things. We carried slightly in point of view and I was curious what you all thought.

Basically the two positions were this...

She advocated saying that equal work should result in equal pay, period no other factor should be consider.

I on the other hand was advocating from a somewhat more complicated position.
First I see that the employee has the responsibility to work hard and honestly for the employer and in turn the employer has a duty to ensure that the individual is compensated at a true fair and livable wage. My position allows that as a single individual working full time I do not feel discriminated against if the employers chooses to pay a single mother with three kids a little more, or the father working with a stay at home mom taking care of kids. My point is that families require more resources in food, clothes, ect and as long as the single person is not being abused and ground to dust in compensation, the we should applauded an employer who is conscious enough to identify some workers need more due to life situations.

Discuss

[PhuturePriest]

I'm with you. A father with four kids and a wife deserves to be paid more than a sixteen year old saving up for a car, or a twenty year old trying to get money as he studies in college. It's common sense.

[eagle_eye222001]

Free the market. :bobby:  

[Ed Normile]

What constitutes fair and Non-discrminatory pay?

 

Whatever the worker accepts for the job they were hired for.

 

I am a self employed contractor and for the past 3 years I have been working for wages that I made 30 years ago in many cases as its better to make a little than to go broke. No one forces anyone to take a job, if they are not happy with the paycheck they are offered then I would council them to seek another job.

 

ed

[PadrePioOfPietrelcino]

What constitutes fair and Non-discrminatory pay?

Whatever the worker accepts for the job they were hired for.

I am a self employed contractor and for the past 3 years I have been working for wages that I made 30 years ago in many cases as its better to make a little than to go broke. No one forces anyone to take a job, if they are not happy with the paycheck they are offered then I would council them to seek another job.

ed

So do you believe that it is justifiable to pay people differing amounts for the same job based on life situations?

[4588686]

I'm with you. A father with four kids and a wife deserves to be paid more than a sixteen year old saving up for a car, or a twenty year old trying to get money as he studies in college. It's common sense.

 

 

 

Interesting.  So you're a communist.  

[4588686]

Free the market. :bobby:  

 

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUlefQePAd8

[4588686]

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need

[PadrePioOfPietrelcino]

Hmm I don't seem to remember advocating any kind of legal legislation. I am trying to debate the ethical implications of how employers may choose to compensate those who work for them. If an employer freely to CHOOSE, to pay married people with children more, based upon the concept that children are expensive, and encouraging the good social use of marriages, that employ currently could get sued for discrimination.

Now I know you quoted FP, be I don't seem to have seen him advocating anything Communist as his statement Watson topic which is not advocating anything legal either...at least with that quote.

[4588686]

Hmm I don't seem to remember advocating any kind of legal legislation. I am trying to debate the ethical implications of how employers may choose to compensate those who work for them. If an employer freely to CHOOSE, to pay married people with children more, based upon the concept that children are expensive, and encouraging the good social use of marriages, that employ currently could get sued for discrimination.

Now I know you quoted FP, be I don't seem to have seen him advocating anything Communist as his statement Watson topic which is not advocating anything legal either...at least with that quote.

 

He didn't mention legislation but obviously his observation would be totally meaningless in a capitalist system.  

[PadrePioOfPietrelcino]

Not true...A Capatalist system still deals with what is ethical and proper. FP was advocating as I was that employers have an obligation toady sustainable livable wages, not based SOLEY on the position. For example married guy with children gets paid .50 more an hour than single lady...Discrimination or fair due to outside obligations?

[4588686]

Not true...A Capatalist system still deals with what is ethical and proper. FP was advocating as I was that employers have an obligation toady sustainable livable wages, not based SOLEY on the position. For example married guy with children gets paid .50 more an hour than single lady...Discrimination or fair due to outside obligations?

 

What within the system of capitalism deals with ethical matters?

[Ed Normile]

So do you believe that it is justifiable to pay people differing amounts for the same job based on life situations?

 

I dont know why I am bothering to answer this as it seems you are trying to bait me into an argument. In case this was an honest question and you misread what I posted as I never said anything that you posed in your response I will reiterate, whatever the employee accepts from his employer, if they do not feel its fair seek another job.

 

ed

[Ed Normile]

So do you believe that it is justifiable to pay people differing amounts for the same job based on life situations?

 

I dont know why I am bothering to answer this as it seems you are trying to bait me into an argument. In case this was an honest question and you misread what I posted as I never said anything that you posed in your response I will reiterate, whatever the employee accepts from his employer, if they do not feel its fair seek another job.

 

ed

[Aloysius]

Catholic Social Doctrine requires that morally and ethically there be a just living wage paid, and inherent in that idea absolutely is that the living wage will vary based upon one's duties and obligations to one's family.  The exact mechanics of how to work that out is another matter, but it is not the Catholic sensibility that one should be required by economic conditions to limit the number of children they have, the Catholic sensibility views children as the right and duty of the married vocation and all economic systems should be subservient to that--the family ideal.

 

The moral issue is entirely separate from the policy issue, and what the exact mechanics of that need to be is entirely up for debate; but Catholic Social Doctrine certainly calls upon us to seek some kind of system that promotes the family.  You know there's something wrong when you talk about a married man who actually works for his living at ANY job who happens to have 3 or 4 kids and we start talking about how it's irresponsible for him to have had those 3 or 4 kids.  Because what you're basically doing is valuing the economic market system over the marital vocation.  We might as well start talking about how irresponsible it is for priests to be being such unproductive members of society, devoting themselves to such large parishes that they don't have time to work a job to earn their own living and have to live off the donations of others.  That is exactly the same kind of thinking that we allow ourselves to consider in the modern capitalist society when we view the married vocation as subservient to economics; the family is basically the most important thing in the worldview of Christendom; for the sake of the family we should be willing to turn the entire system on its head if need be.