Are young people getting a pay rise? | The Daily Aus
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 มิ.ย. 2024
- The peak body for unions in Australia has launched a nationwide campaign to scrap junior wages and give 18-20-year-olds the same minimum wage as everyone else. In case you didn’t know, Australia’s laws legally allow young workers - meaning those under 21 - to be paid less than their older co-workers, even if they are performing the same job. Unions are wanting to change that, so can it be done? We’ll explore the answer in today’s deep-dive.
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Picture this - it's how it all started:
You work in the "men's shirts dept" of a store. You're a "floor worker."
You're getting on in life, so the company hires a "junior" to learn from you.
As the "junior" isn't holding much responsibility, they get the "junior" rate.
As you're not just doing "floor worker" responsibilities now, you're also mentoring, you move to the position of "senior floor worker" which has higher benefits / remuneration than just "floor worker."
In this scenario, the age of the employee does not matter.
Paying a "young adult" or a "child" a reduced rate but expecting them to take on the whole role is wage-theft.
I don't care that they "still live with parents" or any other personal specifics, not all kids do live with parents, not all kids don't pay bills, and it's not the employer's right not know their situation, either.
I'll say it again, paying a young person less and expecting them to do the same job with the same responsibilities, is WAGE-THEFT and it needs to change.
Maybe it functions as an incentive to not discriminate against young workers. Imagine you're an employer. You have this belief that workers aged 18-21 are less reliable than workers over 21. Now your belief may be totally baseless, and if you ever say it out loud, you'd get punished for age discrimination. However, since you're smart enough to never say it out loud, you can get away with hiring only 21+. But with junior rate, you'd actually have a financial reason to hire someone under 21, and that financial incentive may be strong enough to overcome your prejudice against younger workers.
So that's an argument based on incentive, not on fairness. The idea is that most people don't care about fairness (so long as it's not unfair *to them*). They're only moved by rewards and punishments. You can try to punish businesses for age discrimination, but that'd be really hard to enforce (because they could always give a fake reason for not hiring someone). So the easier route would be through rewards. We can even argue that we should lower the minimum wage for senior workers since they too are a common target for age discrimination.
@@deleted01
Sure
But I'm explaining how "junior" and "senior" terms came about in the context of employment and what they meant.
@@EvanCastle Yeah I get you. Junior and senior should refer to job-specific skills and experience, not age.
You nailed it !@@deleted01