[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

As with any manual labour job, it's more physical-strength-intensive and therefore a harder job for most women than for most men, however as neither requires more skill nor qualifications, I think it's very justifiable to say that the roles should have income parity, because women should not be at an income disadvantage because of a completely unavoidable disadvantage in suitability for certain roles. They should have a flat wage structure for unskilled roles with pay variations coming in with experience/managerial roles.

I'm not a huge fan of the age-banding that Niamh mentioned either; all people over 16 should be paid the same hourly wage for doing the same jobs. Labour (and that labourer's time) is not less valuable because of the age of the labourer. It also encourages the hiring of younger people as cheap temporary labour instead of creating real, permanent roles.

Yeah not a massive fan of it either but there are things that under 18's can't do like scan alcohol through the tills and just in regards to the Supermarket my kids work in, it's a small local one and they're really good for employing local teens looking for a part time job in the village, there's only the shop, a cafe, a Chinese take away, a fish and chip shop and a few Pubs there so there's very few options where they wouldn't have to travel to the next town and if they're good they always keep them on and bump their money up when they turn 18