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Equal pay for equal work is not a hard concept to understand - it is basic fairness. Deriding advocates of this as "SJW in SF or NY" or "self-anointed do-gooder

Equal pay for equal work is not a hard concept to understand - it is basic fairness. Deriding advocates of this as "SJW in SF or NY" or "self-anointed do-gooders" indicates a lack of empathy, lack of thought around the broader implications, or in the worst case, capitalistic psychopathy. Sure, you were able to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". On the other side of the equation, the company paying you a pittance used your capitulation to drive down wages elsewhere, including in its home country. There's a reason why maybe women as a group in this day and age continue to earn only 82 cents on the $ that men make [1]. It is easy for a company to play off the "Nigerian" group of workers willing to accept a pittance against the "Women" group of workers living in a High COL area. Sure, you got your quadruple pay, while some woman here went without money for medicine and died before her time. Nigerian Low COL today can be attributed to colonialism - Europeans extracted the multi-generational wealth in that region and left it impoverished within a short period of time, and it takes time to build that wealth back (real rate of return is typically 2-3%) so everything costs less because that's all the people living there can afford to pay for local consumables and durables like, well, food, or housing. Now the (actual or philosophical) descendants of those Europeans play off the impoverished Nigerians against the local Women to exploit both groups. So instead of fighting to correct the structural injustices of either colonialism or labor exploitation, the English-speaking Nigerians 'pulling themselves up by their bootstraps' lobby for the continued abrogation of equal-pay-for-equal-work and deride the people advocating for structural justice in the form of equal-pay-for-equal-work as "social justice warriors in SF or NY" or "self-anointed do-gooders". Bravo! 1. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/01/gender-pay-gap-widens-as-women-age.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/01/gender-pay-ga...

kuboble 4y ago
> Sure, you were able to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". On the other side of the equation, the company paying you a pittance used your capitulation to drive down wages elsewhere, including in its home country. Well, that's exactly the point. The hypocrisy is to pretend it is concern about exploiting poor people while actually it's about protecting own high wages.
- ninjagoo 4y ago
  > The hypocrisy is to pretend it is concern about exploiting poor people while actually it's about protecting own high wages. Just so I don't misunderstand, are you suggesting that equal-pay-for-equal-work is about protecting high wages?
  - cersei 4y ago
    Sounds like the cost of this job is $2/hr? Why justify the highest possible cost as the fair standard?
    - ninjagoo 4y ago
      It's not; the standard is what is that job worth to the company? If exploitable low-cost Kenyans were not available, what would these companies pay? I can't tell you that, but I can tell you it is not $2/hr.
  - kuboble 4y ago
    I don't know what exactly "equal-pay-for-equal-work" stands for. But in this context as an analogy it's seeing a poor starving man eating a rat to survive. You basically want to take the rat away from him and shout "don't eat that! 'Someone' should give him a chicken!" Unless you immediately offer to be that 'someone' personally you're not fighting for his good. You want him to die.
    - ninjagoo 4y ago
      >But in this context as an analogy it's seeing a poor starving man eating a rat to survive. You basically want to take the rat away from him and shout "don't eat that! 'Someone' should give him a chicken!" >Unless you immediately offer to be that 'someone' personally you're not fighting for his good. You want him to die. Let's analyze your argument shall we, with some historical context - first let's make the man poor, force him to starve through colonial theft from his family, then refuse to pay him to right the historical theft (oh no, it would reduce our standard of living, we can't have that!), then oppress a local group (like women or minorities) and when they ask to be paid a fair amount (equal pay for equal work), tell them - do you want to take the rat from the starving man??? Funny how it's always one group of oppressed people that must make sacrifices for other groups of oppressed people, never people like kuboble or ninjagoo.... noooo our standard of living mustn't be affected, we can't have our taxes going up. >Unless you immediately offer to be that 'someone' personally you're not fighting for his good. You want him to die. Did you offer to be that someone? Or is that all on me? You're happy to let the starving man go ahead and eat the rat as long as you don't have to do anything?
ninjagoo 4y ago
Past the limit to edit or delete, so a clarification is in order: "Europeans" is too generic and collectivizes blame, which is not my intent and would be unfair. Please read this as edited below. Lesson learned! -+-+-+ Equal pay for equal work is not a hard concept to understand - it is basic fairness. Deriding advocates of this as "SJW in SF or NY" or "self-anointed do-gooders" indicates a lack of empathy, lack of thought around the broader implications, or in the worst case, capitalistic psychopathy. Sure, you were able to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". On the other side of the equation, the company paying you a pittance used your capitulation to drive down wages elsewhere, including in its home country. There's a reason why maybe women as a group in this day and age continue to earn only 82 cents on the $ that men make [1]. It is easy for a company to play off the "Nigerian" group of workers willing to accept a pittance against the "Women" group of workers living in a High COL area. Sure, you got your quadruple pay, while some woman here went without money for medicine and died before her time. Nigerian Low COL today can be attributed to colonialism - European colonialists extracted the multi-generational wealth in that region and left it impoverished within a short period of time, and it takes time to build that wealth back (real rate of return is typically 2-3%) so everything costs less because that's all the people living there can afford to pay for local consumables and durables like, well, food, or housing. Now the (actual or philosophical) descendants of those European colonialists and colonial companies play off the impoverished Nigerians against the local Women to exploit both groups. So instead of fighting to correct the structural injustices of either colonialism or labor exploitation, the English-speaking Nigerians 'pulling themselves up by their bootstraps' lobby for the continued abrogation of equal-pay-for-equal-work and deride the people advocating for structural justice in the form of equal-pay-for-equal-work as "social justice warriors in SF or NY" or "self-anointed do-gooders". Bravo! [1] https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/01/gender-pay-gap-widens-as-women-age.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/01/gender-pay-ga...
joannanewsom 4y ago
> On the other side of the equation, the company paying you a pittance used your capitulation to drive down wages elsewhere, including in its home country. There's a reason why maybe women as a group in this day and age continue to earn only 82 cents on the $ that men make [1]. How much do you think wages are in Nigeria to the US? A quick googling gives approximately 3 cents to the dollar. That's a 33x difference. You would rather not improve the wages of someone making $0.03 / dollar. Because it _might_ hurt someone making $0.82 / dollar. Yeah equal pay for equal work is about protecting the relatively high US wages. And I don't think it's at all clear that exporting these jobs specifically hurts women workers and not male workers. > Sure, you got your quadruple pay, while some woman here went without money for medicine and died before her time. The average life expectancy in Nigeria is TWENTY FIVE years lower than in the US. Quadrupling the pay of someone in Nigeria has a far greater impact to their health than it does to someone in a first world country where there is significantly more access to medicine and other resources. If you are trying to help someone, wouldn't you want to focus on the population that is dying 25 years before everyone else? > Now the (actual or philosophical) descendants of those Europeans play off the impoverished Nigerians against the local Women to exploit both groups. How are Nigerians being exploited here? If it had been a local Nigerian company offering them a wage of $2 an hour (which is over their minimum wage) would it be exploitation? Or is it simply because the company operates multi-nationally does it become exploitative. > Equal pay for equal work is not a hard concept to understand - it is basic fairness. What is your proposed change here? The minimum wage where I am is $18.50 an hour. Therefore under equal-pay-for-equal-work, if a company based where I am living wants to offer a job outside my area must pay $18.50? Which means, the jobs would never get exported to Nigeria. Sure that is a win for people living in the US, but not for the people living in deep poverty on the other side of the world.
- ninjagoo 4y ago
  These are straw-man arguments [1]. Nice try. The original argument is equal-pay-for-equal-work and these are all arguments for why unequal-pay-for-equal-work is justified, or why much lower lifespans in Africa justify reducing the lifespans of Women in High COL locations, or that Nigerians being offered higher pay doesn't mean that they are being exploited, completely ignoring the fact of collective historical exploitation leading to the current impoverished Low COL conditions, making their current life "cheaper". Is it really that hard to wrap one's head around the equal-pay-for-equal-work argument? Around basic fairness? Offer the same pay across the board for the same work - whether that worker is a Woman or a Nigerian. That's the basic exploitation at play here: the value of the work is $1 (for argument's sake), the US man gets $1, but the US Woman gets $0.82 and the Nigerian gets $0.03. On what basis? Being born a Woman. Or being born in Nigeria. It's not even based on skills, which is this whole different ball of wax. No, it's based on what 'your kind' make. Not what the work is worth, not on any kind of rational basis, simply based on what your kind make or what those around you make. That's deeply unfair. Offer them all $1. Sure, now the counter argument can be, life is unfair, it is what it is. If the follow on to that is that the status quo is acceptable and that no change needs to be made, then that indicates a lack of empathy, or in the extreme, capitalistic psychopathy (which needs to be regulated, within reason, for an actual greater good). If there is empathy, which there presumably is - because I see an argument above to export jobs to reduce poverty, or to improve African lifespans - let's start by changing structural injustices. And using impoverished Nigerians to exploit US Women is not it. Pay them that da** $1 for $1 of work! Not try to get away with $1.85 for $3 of work. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

kuboble 4y ago

> Sure, you were able to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". On the other side of the equation, the company paying you a pittance used your capitulation to drive down wages elsewhere, including in its home country. Well, that's exactly the point. The hypocrisy is to pretend it is concern about exploiting poor people while actually it's about protecting own high wages.

ninjagoo 4y ago
> The hypocrisy is to pretend it is concern about exploiting poor people while actually it's about protecting own high wages. Just so I don't misunderstand, are you suggesting that equal-pay-for-equal-work is about protecting high wages?
- cersei 4y ago
  Sounds like the cost of this job is $2/hr? Why justify the highest possible cost as the fair standard?
  - ninjagoo 4y ago
    It's not; the standard is what is that job worth to the company? If exploitable low-cost Kenyans were not available, what would these companies pay? I can't tell you that, but I can tell you it is not $2/hr.
- kuboble 4y ago
  I don't know what exactly "equal-pay-for-equal-work" stands for. But in this context as an analogy it's seeing a poor starving man eating a rat to survive. You basically want to take the rat away from him and shout "don't eat that! 'Someone' should give him a chicken!" Unless you immediately offer to be that 'someone' personally you're not fighting for his good. You want him to die.
  - ninjagoo 4y ago
    >But in this context as an analogy it's seeing a poor starving man eating a rat to survive. You basically want to take the rat away from him and shout "don't eat that! 'Someone' should give him a chicken!" >Unless you immediately offer to be that 'someone' personally you're not fighting for his good. You want him to die. Let's analyze your argument shall we, with some historical context - first let's make the man poor, force him to starve through colonial theft from his family, then refuse to pay him to right the historical theft (oh no, it would reduce our standard of living, we can't have that!), then oppress a local group (like women or minorities) and when they ask to be paid a fair amount (equal pay for equal work), tell them - do you want to take the rat from the starving man??? Funny how it's always one group of oppressed people that must make sacrifices for other groups of oppressed people, never people like kuboble or ninjagoo.... noooo our standard of living mustn't be affected, we can't have our taxes going up. >Unless you immediately offer to be that 'someone' personally you're not fighting for his good. You want him to die. Did you offer to be that someone? Or is that all on me? You're happy to let the starving man go ahead and eat the rat as long as you don't have to do anything?

ninjagoo 4y ago

Past the limit to edit or delete, so a clarification is in order: "Europeans" is too generic and collectivizes blame, which is not my intent and would be unfair. Please read this as edited below. Lesson learned! -+-+-+ Equal pay for equal work is not a hard concept to understand - it is basic fairness. Deriding advocates of this as "SJW in SF or NY" or "self-anointed do-gooders" indicates a lack of empathy, lack of thought around the broader implications, or in the worst case, capitalistic psychopathy. Sure, you were able to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". On the other side of the equation, the company paying you a pittance used your capitulation to drive down wages elsewhere, including in its home country. There's a reason why maybe women as a group in this day and age continue to earn only 82 cents on the $ that men make [1]. It is easy for a company to play off the "Nigerian" group of workers willing to accept a pittance against the "Women" group of workers living in a High COL area. Sure, you got your quadruple pay, while some woman here went without money for medicine and died before her time. Nigerian Low COL today can be attributed to colonialism - European colonialists extracted the multi-generational wealth in that region and left it impoverished within a short period of time, and it takes time to build that wealth back (real rate of return is typically 2-3%) so everything costs less because that's all the people living there can afford to pay for local consumables and durables like, well, food, or housing. Now the (actual or philosophical) descendants of those European colonialists and colonial companies play off the impoverished Nigerians against the local Women to exploit both groups. So instead of fighting to correct the structural injustices of either colonialism or labor exploitation, the English-speaking Nigerians 'pulling themselves up by their bootstraps' lobby for the continued abrogation of equal-pay-for-equal-work and deride the people advocating for structural justice in the form of equal-pay-for-equal-work as "social justice warriors in SF or NY" or "self-anointed do-gooders". Bravo! [1] https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/01/gender-pay-gap-widens-as-women-age.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/01/gender-pay-ga...

joannanewsom 4y ago

> On the other side of the equation, the company paying you a pittance used your capitulation to drive down wages elsewhere, including in its home country. There's a reason why maybe women as a group in this day and age continue to earn only 82 cents on the $ that men make [1]. How much do you think wages are in Nigeria to the US? A quick googling gives approximately 3 cents to the dollar. That's a 33x difference. You would rather not improve the wages of someone making $0.03 / dollar. Because it _might_ hurt someone making $0.82 / dollar. Yeah equal pay for equal work is about protecting the relatively high US wages. And I don't think it's at all clear that exporting these jobs specifically hurts women workers and not male workers. > Sure, you got your quadruple pay, while some woman here went without money for medicine and died before her time. The average life expectancy in Nigeria is TWENTY FIVE years lower than in the US. Quadrupling the pay of someone in Nigeria has a far greater impact to their health than it does to someone in a first world country where there is significantly more access to medicine and other resources. If you are trying to help someone, wouldn't you want to focus on the population that is dying 25 years before everyone else? > Now the (actual or philosophical) descendants of those Europeans play off the impoverished Nigerians against the local Women to exploit both groups. How are Nigerians being exploited here? If it had been a local Nigerian company offering them a wage of $2 an hour (which is over their minimum wage) would it be exploitation? Or is it simply because the company operates multi-nationally does it become exploitative. > Equal pay for equal work is not a hard concept to understand - it is basic fairness. What is your proposed change here? The minimum wage where I am is $18.50 an hour. Therefore under equal-pay-for-equal-work, if a company based where I am living wants to offer a job outside my area must pay $18.50? Which means, the jobs would never get exported to Nigeria. Sure that is a win for people living in the US, but not for the people living in deep poverty on the other side of the world.

ninjagoo 4y ago
These are straw-man arguments [1]. Nice try. The original argument is equal-pay-for-equal-work and these are all arguments for why unequal-pay-for-equal-work is justified, or why much lower lifespans in Africa justify reducing the lifespans of Women in High COL locations, or that Nigerians being offered higher pay doesn't mean that they are being exploited, completely ignoring the fact of collective historical exploitation leading to the current impoverished Low COL conditions, making their current life "cheaper". Is it really that hard to wrap one's head around the equal-pay-for-equal-work argument? Around basic fairness? Offer the same pay across the board for the same work - whether that worker is a Woman or a Nigerian. That's the basic exploitation at play here: the value of the work is $1 (for argument's sake), the US man gets $1, but the US Woman gets $0.82 and the Nigerian gets $0.03. On what basis? Being born a Woman. Or being born in Nigeria. It's not even based on skills, which is this whole different ball of wax. No, it's based on what 'your kind' make. Not what the work is worth, not on any kind of rational basis, simply based on what your kind make or what those around you make. That's deeply unfair. Offer them all $1. Sure, now the counter argument can be, life is unfair, it is what it is. If the follow on to that is that the status quo is acceptable and that no change needs to be made, then that indicates a lack of empathy, or in the extreme, capitalistic psychopathy (which needs to be regulated, within reason, for an actual greater good). If there is empathy, which there presumably is - because I see an argument above to export jobs to reduce poverty, or to improve African lifespans - let's start by changing structural injustices. And using impoverished Nigerians to exploit US Women is not it. Pay them that da** $1 for $1 of work! Not try to get away with $1.85 for $3 of work. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man