Objectives 

–        To confront participants with the realities of discrimination in the workplace 

–        To analyse whether discrimination on the basis of age and gender should be allowed or not 

–        To make participants aware about the social justice issues in the work place  

Duration and Planning 
  • 70 minutes : “Different Wages” 
  • 10 minutes :  Right to Fair and Decent Employment  
Materials 
  • Wage List 
  • Tag for each participant
  • Pens 
Recommended Method

Explain that the participants are employees for you during this activity and that their employers are the trainers. In particular, say that everyone will be paid fairly and that their work will be paid. Distribute the labels one for each participant randomly. When creating tags, prepare tags based on the list of wages you created to provide discussions on age and gender. For the money, colored papers can be used, with the amounts on them.

Explain participants’ tasks and give a task list.

  • make an origami 
  • make a list of your jobs 
  • look at the meaning of word and write it on a piece of paper 
  • Gather three different leaf and paste them on paper

Afterwards, give the participants time to work and complete these tasks.

After everyone finishes the tasks, tell them to enter the queue to get the wages. Give the wages to each person based on age, gender, and ethnicity as they are listed on the list of wages for random employees. Counting in a loud voice for everyone to hear while giving the money. So everybody can learn how much each participant is getting paid.

If the participants begin to question the complaint about the situation, provide brief and “justifications” and prevent the discussion from occurring.

Finish the simulation after all participants have paid their wages. Give the participants a little time to calm down and get out of the role they play, then create a circle to move to the debriefing.

Trying to run the discussion progressively is important in terms of understanding what participants experience first in simulation and how they relate it to local and national dynamics in the countries. 

The following guidance questions can be used for simulation evaluation:

  • How did you felt when you are being paid more (or less) than others in the same job?
  • Why are some people received more or less than others?
  • What did you feel when you were paid more than others? What did you feel when you were paid less than others?
  • Could this be a reflection of the situation of young people and the others? 

Then ask questions on the basis of both gender, age, and country specifics:

  • Should any work be done by a woman or a man? Do you think this is legitimate?
  • Is it right for you that the 
  • Can the people who has no social security or work contracts defend their rights?
  • Why are the salaries of children, young and adult workers different? Is this true?
  • Are there any discrimination in the workplace towards young people? If yes, can you give an example?

Participants are informed about the work place issues and their rights as young people in the participating countries. 

Additional Information and Readings
This activity is created by using the “EYCB – Compass – Different Wages” activity.

The employment section of the IO1 can be used to facilitate the discussion in country specific issues as it underlines the issues of the young people from statistical and country specific data.  

This educational resource was produced with the financial support of the European Union within Erasmus+ Programme. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the Asociación Socio-Cultural VerdeSur Alcalá and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.