Is this discrimination?

Question

A man and a woman are hired to dig ditches, they are paid by the hour and are only allowed to work for 8 hours a day.

The man is able to dig ditches 3 times as fast as the woman and at the end of the 40 hour week he has earned the same amount even though they he dug 3 times as much in the 40 hour week.

They both started the same day, they are both the same age and same color.

would this be discrimination?

Answer 1

Its not discrimination, its the nature of hourly pay. A smart boss however would fire the women for underperformance an higher anouther man unless this man was concidered some kind of super ditch digger far and above the ditch digging capabilities of a normal man, in which case it wouldn't make sense to fire the woman

It wouldn't make business sense to keep on the woman just because she is a woman if its sucking out the profit

Answer 2

That is hard to say... Is the man required to dig three times faster or does he just choose to because he can? If he dug at the same speed as his female counterpart would he be docked pay or fired?  Its not discrimination unless his boss has payed them the same requiring the male to do more work.  If the male simply chooses to work that fast and hard for that pay it is his choice... Right?

Lets flip the role and say that the profession is administrative and the women can type 55 words per minute and the man can type only 35 wpm.  They are the same age and race and paid the same.  Is it discrimination; that the women finishes more paperwork then the man in a 40 hour week or could the women choose to produce slower as to give fair work to her fair pay?

Answer 3

yes, man is looser

Answer 4

No it's not discrimination, unfair maybe. It's like in every job - if you are paid by the hour you get some peopel that work really hard and some that just slack all day.

Answer 5

Absolutely not, if they both took the job understanding they would be paid hourly then not a chance.  If that were discrimination then everytime I pump out more work than one of my collegues I should feel discriminated against and vice versa.  As long as people are working to capacity then all is fair.

Answer 6

It's not descrimination if they are paid by the hour, no.  It would only be discrimination if they were being paid by the length of ditches they dug.

personally, i think the company that hired them should have had more sense than to hire a girl to dig ditches.  it serves them right.

Answer 7

Yes, that's communism.

Answer 8

No it is performance based.

EDIT- I am sorry I though this was a duplicate of your previous question since it was deleted.  Obviously this is not performance based.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Answer 9

It's not discrimination, they work the same hours, they get paid the same.

You did not indicate whether there was an expectation of how much  digging was to be completed so we don't know whether the man is outperforming the standard or if the woman is performing at a substandard level.

Answer 10

he should receive 3 times, since he worked 3 times more

i think that kind of job should be payed on performance

or he can slow down

lol poopoo communism hahah..acttually yeah

Answer 11

that's why forcing companies to have gender targets for all jobs is so wrong.

no doubt some women could dig ditches faster than most men, but in general no.

men and women are different and for this reason make different career decisions and life choices.

it's about time modern feminists understood this.

Answer 12

It's not fair. If it was otherway round it would still be unfair.

What about if they got paid per ditch? Would it be discrimination to pay the man more because he can do more?

Tough stuff really and no one is going to be happy in the end. Someone is going to complain about something or another.

Answer 13

Nope. But it's why he's far more likely to get a hefty raise than the woman.

Answer 14

No. He wasn't obligated to do more than his fair share.

Answer 15

It's not fair, but it's not discrimination. The man is under no obligation to dig more then the woman. He is being paid based on time worked, not performance.