14%: A Treatise On Fairness

On moral sanctuary, adiaphorism, and justice

I’m working part-time as a mathematics teacher for a private establishment. I’ve been with the establishment for almost a year now. I started out teaching primary school kids, and I’ve agreed to the rates they’re paying me. It’s not a lot (25%, to be exact), but from the start, I can reasonably justify that share. They’ve provided all the teaching materials, the venues, and I didn’t have to do any admin work. I just needed to show up.

Soon, my employer asked if I was interested in taking up secondary school classes. I enthusiastically said yes — primary school maths is actually harder to teach. He gave me a class of three students, and I happily agreed to the rates then.

When we entered our nationwide lockdown, we moved online. Gradually, he opened up new classes for me. (Of which, I was thankful then.) But soon, things started to get fishy: he seemed eager to put as many students as he could into one class. At one point, he wanted to collapse two of my classes into one. I quickly retorted. The students are way better off than they were then. Combining them would affect their learning pace.

I was paid by the hour. So if we do the math, it’s a zero-sum game. Students get less attention, and I get paid less. And clearly, the sole beneficiary of this arrangement was my employer. This is where my ethical bells start ringing.

As an educator, my top priority is whether my students are getting the best learning experience. Yes, some students prefer learning in a group. But at that juncture, my students told me that they were happy as they were. And I couldn’t agree more.

Recently, a couple of parents approached me asking if I could tutor their kids privately. I didn’t think much at that time. I offered my rates, and they immediately got shocked by the discrepancy. They’re paying twice as much as the market rate (a fact my employer later admitted.) They voluntarily told me how much they were paying the establishment.

I quickly calculated and found out my employer was paying me between 14–16% of the student’s charges. And the more students he can squeeze into my classes, the more this percentage goes down. I do more work, students get less attention, and he earns more.

I got extremely furious after having this information. It also dawned upon me why my employer has been reluctant to tell me how much he charges his students every time I asked. (I only did so because he tried to convince me parents pay “significantly” less when they sign up for group classes.)

I felt indignant as I felt that I’d been ripped off for the past four months working under the impression that my students and I would’ve been fairly treated. I think that everyone would agree that this zero-sum arrangement is not right in many ways.

I told some of my friends about my revelations, and they quickly agreed that things weren’t ethical. Just the share alone was unethical. I didn’t have to bring in how he’s commodified his student’s education. Obviously, I told my family members as well. My mother was shocked. But my seemingly incompetent brother thinks nothing wrong. “It’s his business model,” he said. As if that’s sufficient to vindicate the arrangement from any moral charges.

I calmed myself down and called my employer, confronting him about this matter. I raised the issue about parents approaching me and revealing how much they were being charged. I demanded to know how much he’s been charging other students (different courses get charged differently.) He still avoids telling me.

I came clean afterward and told him 14% just isn’t going to work. After raising my concerns, he said, “You have to see it as a business. Think of it as working at Starbucks. We pay you by the hour. Not how much coffee you can serve.”

Whether we should be paying baristas by the hour is another, albeit important, concern. But to compare the work of a teacher to a barista. That’s just not right. And where do we draw the line? Are the works of nurses, doctors, caretakers, and any forms of labor reducible to that of a barista?

I then asked if he could justify taking more than 80% of the students’ fee when all he provided me was some materials (I still have to prepare my own), the students, and a Zoom account. He couldn’t. The only response I got was that it goes into “supporting the franchise.” Our secondary program didn’t involve any physical venues (it was all online), and it didn’t involve the admin team (I needed to liaise with parents on many matters).

He then promised that he would come up with a proposal that would “pay me way more.”

A couple of days later, two more parents asked if I could tutor their kids privately. Who wouldn’t? My rates are half of that of the establishment. One of them texted my employer asking if she could withdraw from the program. My employer found out that students are quitting his program to get private classes outside (with me), and he told me what I was about to do was “unethical.” (Ironic, huh? You never see things morally until shit hits you.)

I was honest when I told him I had no intention of stealing his students. If I were, I would’ve done so way earlier. I think by then, he knew he had to do something about his current arrangement. Economically, if the arrangement was fair to everyone, this wouldn’t have happened. When two players conspire against another in a rational game of choice, we could deduce something isn’t fair about the game.

So, I told him that I could earn as much just by tutoring one student of his then to continue working for him. If he wants me to continue working for him, he needs to offer me a better proposal. And he better do it quickly.

That very weekend, he came up with a new offer. As of now, I’m no longer paid by the hour. I get paid 50% of every student’s charges. As a result, my monthly pay increased by 300%.

One really wonders: If he could afford to pay me 300% more than what he had been paying me, then where the hell did all that money go to? Investment in Jack Daniels? Games of Russian Roulette? Or somebody who needed a heart transplant? I sure wish what “supporting the franchise” really entails.

On Moral Sanctuary And Adiaphorism

My own experience inspired the thought experiment I posted here a while ago. When I shared my predicament with my family members, none of them thought anything was off. (Sure, my mother was shocked about that 14%, but she didn’t think anything was unfair.)

So, I threw up this thought experiment:

Someone hired me to clean his house for $100. Instead of my doing it myself, I hired a cleaner to do the same job for $14. I deliberately hide how much I’m charging my clients from my employee. The cleaner doesn’t know much I’m charging my clients and he unknowingly agrees to the 14%.

And none of them thought it was unfair. I was genuinely shocked. It’s not because they could justify their seemingly evil thoughts. But it’s because they couldn’t. All of them basically said, “This is just how businesses are. There’s no fairness involved.”

My brother (another corrupt capitalist who owns his business) thinks that “this is other people’s business model. You can’t judge other people’s business model.” Sure, if that business model condones exploitation, child labor, and underpaid wages, you can’t judge it as well. Such brains, right? This is a typical strategic avoiding of moral charges.

My mother (a salesperson) says that just as her clients don’t ask how much she bought her items, we cannot ask how much the students are being charged. What?! This is a simple normality-morality false equivalence: just because people don’t normally do something doesn’t ipso facto make it morally right.

I continued taking opinions on Instagram, and to my surprise, the results were almost a split (60% thinks it unfair, the remaining 40% does.) Those who think it fair had the same justifications as my family members, i.e., “that’s just how businesses are; you can’t say it’s unfair.” And yes, most of that 40% are business students.

Alas, I’ve noticed a dangerous trend in how we think about our everyday transactions and businesses: we let normality cloud our sense of morality. The people who think 14% is fair had no issue justifying why that 14% exists in the first place: most of them talk about risk. Yes, the employer has an obligation to pay his employee even he’s not making a profit. Most also talk about demand and supply of value: the maid (and I) could only check her market value and see if she’s paid adequately, and she had no right to probe into the transaction itself.

While I completely understand all these (and I’m thankful to those who endured it all to explain them to me), none actually addressed the morality of these mechanics. Yes, the entrepreneurial risk the employer carries might explain why he only pays the maid 14%. But in doing so, are we neglecting the moral tradeoffs of this transaction? For instance, is entrepreneurial risk sufficient to morally justify the systematic devaluing of the maid’s labor value?

Disturbingly, almost none of my respondents were willing (or incapable) to engage in this scenario’s moral evaluation. As Carlos Garbiras says, “the dismissal of concepts of fairness is an adaptive, maybe maladaptive, response to the asymmetrical risk exposures taken by those embarking in commercial enterprises.”

I couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately, when it comes to the contemporary business world, we either consciously or unconsciously do not talk about the morality of our transactions. Because of the risks we take, we can’t afford to talk about ethics.

But this really shouldn’t be the case.

My personal experience highlights the epistemic blindness that exists in the business world. I was naive to believe that my employer was paying me fairly. And how I was blinded from demanding a better value of my work.

I had been continuously asking my employer how much students pay for their classes. It’s an attempt to gauge my value relative to the client’s perception of my value. He had been avoiding that question. (And, now, I know why.) If I had known earlier how much he charges his students, I would’ve negotiated earlier. I don’t know if he knew what he was doing wasn’t fair (or right). By deliberately creating a blind curtain between my students and me, he denies my realization of my true value of labor.

It took several parents to make me realize that I was worth much more than what my employer wanted me to think. And it’s this epistemic injustice that I wish to address. This is why many forms of important labor have been systematically denied their true value.

So, here’s my new question:

Someone hired me to clean his house for $100. Instead of doing it myself, I hired a cleaner to do the same job for $14. I deliberately hide how much I’m charging my clients from my employee. I could have paid him as much as $70 for the job. For whatever reason, I don’t. The cleaner doesn’t know much I’m charging my clients, and he unknowingly agrees to the 14%.

For whatever reason, is this transaction fair? Does the maid have the right to know how much I’m charging my clients?

I’d like to thank Carlos Garbiras, Squeeze the Avocado, Mike Van Horn, Johnny R. O’Neill, Erik Brown, Darryll Halwa, Alex Bennett, Stevecguns, and Will Hull for responding to my previous post. Though we may disagree on things, I appreciate you taking your time to engage.

It’s so difficult to find people who could disagree with and still respect you at the same time these days. I’m grateful that my respondents were charitable. As such, I invite you to respond to my new prompt. I’m open to discussions!