I have been thinking about what makes fair a lot lately and keen to get some input from the sub.
There’s a lot of ways you can look at pay, and I don’t really know the answer. At a minimum there has to be a liveable basic income, but how do you layer on aspects like supply and demand, criticality of the job (key workers), work conditions, and surplus value of the worker (to lean on Marx)?
In the simplest sense it feels like most countries have a minimum wage (that may or may not be liveable) and the rest is largely based on the least that can be offered to fill a role (effectively supply and demand).
In the UK we have quite a few sectors striking, in general they have a bigger voice and impact because their services are more relied on – nurses, public’s transport staff, mail staff etc. (driving instructors are an outlier here!).
What I find interesting is – do you deserve more pay because your service is relied on more than others? What does that mean for people in equally challenging but less relied on fields?
I don’t have an answer so would be interested in hearing your point of view.