That sounds unfair to me–and illogical.
If that were to happen today, the boss would have to make some changes. This is one reason why we have Unions and Human Resource people, yes?
We try to ensure that workers who do the same amount and kind of work get paid equally (ie: fairly).
This is why most workers today get paid overtime when they work longer hours than others.
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I think you perhaps did not read the gospel through (to get the context), nor are you considering the whole picture.
The first workers agreed to a set wage for their work that they considered perfectly fair. And they worked the agreed hours. No overtime.
The next sets of laborers went off knowing only that the boss would pay them what he considered appropriate.
Remember that in the time frame, people often would go off to the marketplace and wait to be hired. Now let’s face it, bosses would soon get to know which people were ‘good workers’ and which were slackers. So the ones who got ‘left behind’ for the day were most likely those with a proven track record of ‘slacking’, or else ‘newbies’ who didn’t ‘have’ a record.
This was not a situation where these poor willing people were unfairly denied a right to work. They would have considered themselves LUCKY to get ANY work.
And here’s the thing --the boss is GENEROUS. He gives a fair and just wage to the people who did a ‘regular day’s work’ and in addition, he gives those who may NOT have had the same opportunities a decent wage as well. Imagine the possible effects on those people who might have gone home after a day of ‘no work’ to a starving family, and now they have the wages of a full day to help that family.
In today’s ‘fairness’, we have the same kind of thing. How many workers who for example get Family Leave are paid for work that they don’t do, in order to get them through a crisis situation? Isn’t that the same kind of idea? How many people ‘donate’ their hours to those in need. . .isn’t that the same kind of idea?
I just shake my head at all the people who think they’re ‘more fair’ than Jesus. We’re living in a time when millions of children are aborted. Is that FAIR? But we don’t even (many of us) think it’s WRONG to take that child’s life, because it isn’t FAIR to the mother to ‘punish her with a child’.
Boy oh boy. Heaven forbid that somebody be perceived of getting something ‘more’ than another to which he or she is not ‘entitled’. . .unless, of course, it is sanctioned by society. And heaven forbid that an unborn child have ‘rights’, because that isn’t FAIR to the born mother (or father). We’re fixated on fair, but we have become a society that doesn’t even know what fairness IS.
