equal rights, equal pay - not fair?

red_ice wrote:

Right, in work today i witnessed something that made me angry towards the whole equal rights payment lark between men and women. I wont go into the details of it, ill just give the facts, and you can decide if its fair or not.

I do deliveries which compose of 3 different products. Product A, B and C. Im not sure on the exact weights of the product, so i will put in random weights for arguements sake. My day requires me to load in the morning at 6am and work till the jobs done. I work to 6/7pm most days. Today is an exception because i worked late last night.

Product A weighs 5kg
Product B weighs 10kg
Product C weighs 20kg

Apparently, its illegal for women to lift over 15kg in the work place. Insurance wont cover it either.

5% of our market takes product A
10% of our market takes product B
85% of our market takes product C

In my work we work in pairs because of the work load. If i was to work with a woman, i would have to lift all 3 products, she would only have to lift 2. The vast majority of our stops would take product C in bulk. How is it fair that she takes equal pay for the days work, when she only has to work for 2 out of 10 stops and i have to work for 10/10 stops, and do the ones she doesnt have to on my own, which mind you is very tiring and hard.

I think its terrible. I totally support female rights and equal pay in an enviroment that enables equal work loads, but in a situation like mine i think that its totally unfair, and there is no way a woman should be entitled to equal pay for the work done.

What do you think?

never heard of this before,but why would i,still needs clarification though,but if it is true take it up with your boss

^ maybe thats just in their employment-liabilty policy?

I say have her do the driving and lift everything else.

And if you work in twos: she is only lifting 10kgs of prduct C

There is no legal limit to what anyone can lift, as anyone who has done the safe-pass or other safety/ergonomics classes will know. (there used to be and it was something stupid like >30lbs was a 2 person lift)now the health and safety guidelines state that you should not lift anything heavier than you feel comfortable lifting, and if memory serves there is no distinction made between men and women.(memory doesnt always serve:p ) except the understanding that lighter and smaller people will not feel comfortable lifting loads as heavy as a bigger, heavier person.

Give the HSA a call they will tell you.

can your insurance company enforce other health and safety limits on you if you have complied with the statutory ones?

BTW Im all for equal work equal pay and I dont agree with positive discrimination at all.

Lil Kitten wrote:

Is she getting paid the same amount? In general women get paid I think about 16% less than men. Which is huuuge! So maybe in this one instance you feel it's unfair. In the vast majority of other jobs men are being treated much much better. Welcome to how it feels to be treated unfairly in the workplace. Consider your self lucky you're not in the majority of people who wear a bra.

Come on lil' kitten, don't be quoting tabloid figures. All those surveys saying that men are paid more forget a few simple facts:

1. Although there is now equality, this didn't always exist. As a result, there are still a lot of older women in the workplace who are at a lower level than men in their age group (ie. low/middle management while the men are in senior management). This has nothing to do with current culture or work practices. This is more to do with the fact that they may have been disadvantaged earlier in their careers.

2. Women are more likely to take career breaks or work part time while pregnant or starting their families. They are not being forced to, it is their own choice. You might argue about men looking after the infants while the mother returns to work etc, but most (not all) women prefer to be at home with their young children than stuck in an office (maternal instincts and what not).

3. 20-30 years ago would have seen more males than females studying accountancy, sciences, IT engineering etc (i.e. most of the high paying careers). Although these college courses are more balanced now, it will take another 20-30 years before these graduates make their way up the career ladder.

I have never seen a woman discriminated against in the workplace or in college. I cannot (unfortunately) say the same about men.

Feminism is not about equality. It is about discriminating in favour of women. red_ice's story is the perfect example of feminists getting what they want. If anyone was to enforce equality here (pay the man more for doing work or forcing the woman to do the same work for the same wage), they would get beaten to death with handbags;)

Men and women are not supposed to be equal! They are different (both have their pros and cons). Got a problem with that? Blame Mother Nature (See what happens when you let a women rule the world;))

red_ice, you need to talk to your union or management (if approachable) and insist on equal treatment. If the company insists that women should not lift more than 15kg, then your union should insist that men are not to lift more than 15kg. This will hopefully force your company to break Product C in half (if possible - can it be transported in smaller loads?), or pay employees by the amount of work they actually do (as mentioned above, expect a handbag in the face if this happens though!)

Sleepy wrote:

TBH, why would a woman be hired in the job if she's legally not qualified to do it?

A woman could hardly claim she was being discriminated against in this particular job if a more suitable candidate (i.e. a man capable of lifting all three products) got the job ahead of her.

Indeed. I used to be shop steward for the main union in a large Irish company. There was a case where a job earning slightly more money became available and a woman asked to apply. She was told that the job required a high degree of heavy lifting and as such they would only be taking applications from men. She tried to take a case of dicrimination but I had to explain that she hadn't a leg to stand on.

Companies are allowed to specify men or women only in certain situations and it isn't discrimination. Women can be disqualified from jobs requiring heavy lifting and men can be disqualified for jobs such as sensitive work in women's shelters.

OP are there actually any women doing your job?