Underpaid Teens Essay Example

a few days before the minor can actually start their first day of work. The amount of hours that the teen works is based on the age of the teen. On the next day you will see a chart the goes through this ages, and hours.

As you can see when you have an adult employee and an minor employee there are a few differences. But one of those differences should not be compensation. Teenagers should not be paid less adults just because they are teenagers. This is unfair and it is against the law. “Age discrimination involves treating someone (an applicant or employee) less favorably because of his age. ” One of the more famous situations of this happening is the child care in Sydney story. Gina Moelau is the owner of the Rainbow Paradise Pre-School and Child Care Center.

The childcare is at Blacktown in Western Sydney. The center has three now 19 year old employees. Two of them watch the children at the child care and the other one cooks meals and cleans the childcare center. The three were given an hourly wage that was way lower than the minimum wage. The teens were underpaid for a large part of the time that they work at the center, this being from July of 2009 until November of 2011. In November of 2011 the Fair Work Ombudsman stepped in to take action. The Ombudsman said they first gave the childcare a warning about under paying the teenagers.

After the probationary time limit had passed the Fair Work Ombudsman came back for a follow up with Rainbow Paradise Pre-School and Child

Care Center. They then found out that the wages of the teens was still the same. This caused the Ombudsman to begin an official lawsuit against the Rainbow Child Care Center. In the end th center was charged over $33,000 in penalties and was forced to back pay the $8491 that was owed to the three teens. This was not the only time that something like this has happened. This is just one of the few times that someone has gotten caught.

There are many teens that I have worked with and that have asked me questions about the amount of money that they are paid. A Milwaukee company was paying their teenage worker $6. 25, that’s a whole dollar less than minimum wage. When she told me this I was in stock that a company like this would ever do something as illegal as underpaying a worker just because they are a teen. I very quickly contacted the company about this illegal business practice. When I was on the phone talking to them they told me that giving teens a dollar less was a temporary thing just for the first sixty days.

After the first sixty days they would then be given the full $7. 25 as a “promotion”. I then had to go through the process of explaining to them that it is never ok to pay a 17 year old under $7. 25 if they are working a non-tipping job in the state of Wisconsin. After my conversation with one of the owners he still did not make the change happen right away. It took for me to make a

phone call to the owner again this time saying that I was going to call the EEOC on their business. The next pay point he made the changes to his paycheck.

Teenagers are the biggest age group for working ether right under or exactly minimum wage. In fact 17 and 18 year olds alone work the most minimum wage jobs. The fact of the matter is that in an employer’s eyes they are cheap labor. They will work for minimum wage and be very happy working for minimum wage. Whereas an adult will not work for minimum wage and the stats show that as a minor becomes older and moves into adulthood there are less and less people working at minimum wage. If you get more money the older you are then this is why there is the problem of the teen, adult age gap.

Teenagers and adults working the same job should be paid the same amount of money that’s the only fair way to do it. However, teens are being paid $0. 22 less per dollar then adults. This number even increases when you look at more advance work. Since we know that there is a difference we have to figure out why is there a difference. What’s going on to make it so that teenagers and being paid less than adults. As we know managers have a budget that they have to stick with when it comes to staffing.

Within that budget they are given the freedom and flexibly to hire an employee at any pay rate they would like just as long as it is within the budget.

U. S. News did research on my some employees earn more than other employees and here are the top five reason that they had found. 1) You co-worker negotiated better than you did when she was hired. They might have been better at asking for more money. Whereas you might have just taken the job for face value your co-worker might have asked for more money. 2) The job market was tighter when your co-worker was applying.

When there are not a lot of qualified applications for the position that an employer is trying to fill the employer might increase the compensation for the position to make it look more appealing. 3) Your co-worker has a particular degree or skill that the company rewards. There could be special training that a co-worker might have that the company wants. If this is true the company would rather pay this person more money because they have this skill verse paying for them to college back to school to get the skill. 4. Your work isn’t as good as you think it is.

Outside of performance reviews some employee’s never really take the time to ask their supervisor how they are doing. Some people are not working up to part and the supervisor might not say anything until a year later when it is time for perform there review. 5. Your co-worker’s boss or job is a nightmare. As an employer when you have a position that is not the most attractive position is can become hard to fill as no one wants to perform that line of work. So to make the position seem more

interesting an employer might increase the pay of the position. As we work toward closing this gap teens are going to have brush up on their skills.

One of the main skills that they are going to have to get better at is negotiation this is a huge skill to have. They have to be able what skill, experience, knowledge, and education. The next thing that teens have to learn how to do is to be able to take all the things that they have and add it to a dollar amount. They have to learn how to say I have all of these qualities and experience, I will do this for your company, and I am worth at least this dollar amount. I believe that when teens learn that they have power that they can make things happen they will slowly start to begin to close the teenager to adult pay gap.