t i t for tat

Can anybody tell me what the phrase "a day's work for a day's pay" means? I need to translate this saying into german. However I am not sure whether I understood it correctly.

I am away from my library so I can't give you references at this point. But this phrase (to me) is about being an honest, good employee. The worker gives his/her employer a FULL day's work for a day's pay. If you are paid for eight hours, you are hard at work for eight hours. Not drinking coffee and gossiping with co-workers.

In modern terms, it is about not being a slacker, a goof-off or a goldbricker. You don't cheat your employer.

This is an old slogan used in British Labour movement (and possibly the American as well)where is was about fair employment practices. In other words, a worker should be paid the going rate for the work put in regardless of his gender or race, etc. A worker paid less because he's on a job training scheme would be an example of someone who is putting in a day's work but not receiving a day's pay

I am not sure which understanding of the expression predates the other but the idea that it's understood as being about not cheating employers is interesting.

Just found more evidence - sort of. A variation is the slogan of the American Federation of Labor, that is "a fair day's pay for a fair day's work"

I believe you're right. My evidence: a brand name for plugs of tobacco chewed by miners (smoking wasn't allowed in the mines) was called "Day's Work."

The problem here is that phrase as posted is the reverse of the original:

"A fair day's wages for a fair day's work': it is as just a demand as governed men ever made of governing. It is the everlasting right of man." From "Past and Present" by Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881). Found in "Bartlett's Familiar Quotes," Seventeenth Edition.

First I thought this too, however, in the questionnaire this is meant to be an expression of someone who primarily works for the money. A person that values the work not for itself (the fun or the challenge) but only works to get paid.

Is there a German expression for "working for a living" or "in it for the money"?

This phrase may have origins in the Bible from Deuteronomy 24:15
"You shall give him his wages on his day before the sun sets, for he is poor and sets his heart on it; so that he will not cry against you to the LORD and it become sin in you.

This would tend to indicate that survival each day for the poor may have been dependent upon receiving wages daily for their daily labors.

I doubt this. I think this expression really relies upon a concept of selling one's time for wages as an exchange of equivalents on the market, a concept that is only fairly recent.

It makes sense to me, though. Laborers might have needed their day's wages to buy food for the evening meal and the next day.

Thanks anyway I will stick to the "in it for the money". In the sense of the questionnaire it should mean something like "t i t for tat". Though I think it is very interesting that even for native speakers this saying is not very clear in its meaning. I should consider to maybe drop it altogether.