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US Labor Board: It's OK To Discuss Work and Pay with Coworkers On Social Sites
itwbennett writes "Your employer won't like it, but they can't stop you from discussing working conditions and compensation with your coworkers on social media. In his most recent social media memo, National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Lafe Solomon said that in 6 of the 7 employers' social media policies he reviewed, he found violations of Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, which allows employees to join labor unions and to discuss working conditions with each other."
If the employees learn that we're skewing the pay-scale, they might somehow demand equitable treatment.
This will ruin our ability to manipulate them into dividing against themselves!
--Signed, the Corporate Oligarchy.
PS: Maybe if put larger cookies on smaller plates in the breakroom, we'll get them thinking about their diets.
But still, some things are a matter of good taste. Sure, you can do it on your own time, but I know I wouldn't want to know what my co-workers make. Not that I think I'm under paid or anything, but it's information that simply doesn't affect me. How is discussing it with anyone going to help me?
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Pick your poison:
Favoritism
Nepotisim
Sexism
Racisim
Religious persecution
Etc.
Employers don't want you to discuss with your co-workers what your pay and benefits packages are, because they offer sweet deals to people they like, and that favoritism is not always above board.
If other employees knew that billybob the janitor was getting paid three times what they were, they would demand to know why, ad worse, demand better pay. Usually billybob gets that sweet reimbursement for his labor because of some dirty secret, like he's the boss's lover, brother, illegitimate son, whatever. All of which are clearly outright illegal.
Keeping people ignorant let's you get away with abuses of power. That's why they penalise people who share their information.
So glad to have your permission to exercise my right to free speech on a social network NOT owned/controlled by my employer
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
The employer can not include in their policy:
"Don't release confidential guest, team member, or company information on social media...."
"Offensive, demeaning, abusive, or inappropriate remarks are as out of place online as they are offline."
"Think carefully about friending coworkers online."
"Employees should report any unusual or inappropriate internet social media activity."
And on and on.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
If you are ever in a position to negotiate a raise for yourself then it will be useful.
Such as if you are interviewing for a new job.
Or during performance evaluations.
One of the messages of the latest NLRB memo is to avoid ambiguous language in social media policies and spell out situations to avoid, said Mayer Brown's Goodman...The NLRB seems to be on a "journey" to address social media in the workplace, Goodman said. The three memos, which don't lay out specific rules, may be confusing to many companies, she added.
NLRB kinda sorta said what companies might should do; e.g. Don't be ambiguous. but they didn't exactly say how. Good work guys.
Barring employees from disclosing their pay to anyone is illegal in many states (Michigan I am sure of).
Either that, or Billybob just puts up with a lot more shit than anyone else.
*cymbal crash*
I mean, it's my understanding that an employer can terminate an employee for almost any reason imaginable, or no reason at all... and if none is given, wouldn't the onus fall on the employee to prove that the actual reason was one that is illegal?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
You're kidding, right?
It's mostly about negotiating, and keeping the peace.
The more someone knows what others are being paid, the more he knows about what the employer is truly willing to pay someone for that work. In salary negotiations, information is power. So employers try to scare employees away from gathering that kind of info.
Also, when people know each other's salaries, it tends to make people discontent, when they'd previously been happy. Everyone wants to make more than everyone else. When people don't know each other's salaries, they're generally happy if they think they're making market rate. Want a recipe for a nasty workplace? Negotiate different salaries for each employee, and then let them all know who's making what.
That would be the [favoritism] poison, would it not?
Sally gets paid more than Alice, because?
Why wouldn't Alice be miffed about that?
Solution that doesn't open the door to nasty nepotism and favoritism?
Hard set pay grades, openly state where the figures come from, let people walk if they demand more pay.
Not everyone is a throat slitting MFer. As an employer who wants quality employees, employees that want to bleed me dry because they feel special, but really aren't, are not a commodity I want to keep anyway. (I am not actually an employer, but that's how I view the situation.)
With all due respect, I imagine you will/would have a different perspective on the issue if/when you are an employer.
But if they find out they can make your work life rough on you.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Because your employer doesn't want you talking to your co-workers outside of their control, because that could lead to workers organizing, which we all know is worse, circa 2012, than genocide or child-rape.
But rest assured, Mitt Romney, (aka Ronald II) has promised to do away with the National Labor Relations Board (seriously), because in a free market such things just aren't necessary because everyone knows that once you just free private industry from the constraints of onerous federal regulations against things like, say, killing your workers, employers will start treating their employees really really well. Just as it happened back in the 1880s, the golden age of employer-employee relations.
Oh, and tax cuts for them that deserve them. Because the rich will work harder if they are given more, but the rest of you will work harder if you are given less.
If only we'd known that getting rid of the EPA, the Department of Education, the National Labor Relations Board and NPR would lead to utopia, we'd have done it long ago. Oh, and Planned Parenthood, because women have to stop being such sluts.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Probably.
Business is a cuthroat enterprise. As such, there is a clear, and present advantage to shafting employees and keeping them ignorant with information control. If you can pay your people peanuts and get away with it, why on earth would you ever want them to know that they are getting shafted? Profit man! Profit! Its why you started the business!
The difference is that I am not a bloodthirsty, elitist bastard MFer that wants a free lunch, and more shockingly, I don't feel I am entitled to one, and feel I should be paid according to a fair and equitable standard.
This is because I am a fair and equitable person.
As pointed out in the grandparent, the real reason for these information control polices is exactly antithetical to that viewpoint. Claiming it results in a more harmonious workplace when people don't know about the bullshit is a no brainer. Nobody wants to put up with bullshit.
The problem is that the bullshit is so endemic, that its business as usual, and people are perfecty happy to cause the bullshit, as long as they are the beneficiary. That's basically your argument.
Mine is that the bullshit shouldn't be tolerated period, because it causes so many headaches.
posting to undo wrong moderation.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I'm a hiring manager with direct reports, and I want quality employees, and am willing to compensate them. HR, though, makes most compensation decisions, however.
Would I be subject to compensating someone higher than another due to favoritism? Hell, yes! What's important is what that favoritism is based upon, though. I don't believe in accepting (e.g.) sexual favors, but if you're a good contributor who makes my life easier, you're likely to be my favorite, and I'm likely to want to pay you more.
As much as we despise HR, their control over salaries helps mitigate a lot of favoritism issues.
--Jim (me)
anymore talking points to add?
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I think the fundamental issue you'll run into, when trying to apply the ethical standard you describe, is determining what a "fair" market price is for someone's labor.
I don't think you'll find a single, undeniably superior way of reckoning what it should be.
I mean, if you wanna get people riled up. Don't make fun of their religion. Don't make fun of their kids. Don't rape their mother. No, we can deal with these things. But talk about his/her money? Shit!
My mom was running a successful business for 15 years with about 25 employees where everyone knew each other's salary. Didn't cause any troubles. But then people doing the same job were paid the same, too (performance bonuses were separate from that). And people did just fine recognizing that some jobs pay more than others.
Granted, that was not in US.
Just as it happened back in the 1880s, the golden age of employer-employee relations.
Watch out - with statements like that, you're virtually guaranteed to summon roman_mir to this thread.
If other employees knew that billybob the janitor was getting paid three times what they were, they would demand to know why, ad worse, demand better pay. Usually billybob gets that sweet reimbursement for his labor because of some dirty secret, like he's the boss's lover, brother, illegitimate son, whatever. All of which are clearly outright illegal.
The brother and the illegitimate son are not in any way illegal. You can employ family members and pay them whatever you deem appropriate, at least in privately held businesses. The lover is questionable. The lover thing is a (dark) gray area because it can create a discriminatory working environment and *that* is illegal.
Keeping people ignorant let's you get away with abuses of power. That's why they penalise people who share their information.
That at least is true, if you replace "let's" with "lets."
A corporation exists to make money, specifically profit. It wants to control all things that impact that result. Controlling information about employees, from employees, gives them an edge in the making of profit. Some of the thing a corporation might want to do, or assumes it can do to or with employees, is in fact illegal and they can't actually do those things. However, most large corporations also know that they can induce their employees to tow their corporate line with sanctions that while are perhaps illegal, would be either difficult to prosecute, or nearly impossible to prove. This leaves most employees in the situation that they can either put up with the "problem" or they can seek legal remedy, knowing full well they may lose, or simply be waited out until their funds run out.
This isn't to say that people haven't won substantial settlements from large corporations, it is to say pick your battles carefully, you have a lot at stake and the deck has been stacked against you.
Generally the bad employees will bitch and demand "equal pay" for "equal work", when they don't actually provide equal work. In 2 of my last companies I knew exactly how much everyone made, and if some people found out I can guarantee you there would be some very unhappy employees even though they were getting paid much more they were worth.
I've also seen cases where a husband and wife were working at the same company and they were fairly close in pay, even though one of them wasn't in a position that should be making what they were and higher than their coworkers. Obviously this was because the company assumed the husband/wife knew what they were both making and it was their best interest to keep them fairly close in pay.
I also don't want my coworkers knowing what I make because they will likely try demanding more than they are making when they don't deserve it. They aren't nearly as good and no matter what is said or done, they will just become upset. In one company I was making more than both my direct boss (CIO), and his boss (COO/CEO) because I was in the very upper end (maybe a bit above) of what the market would pay, while my coworkers were mainly junior but some of them thought they were better than they were, but when the shit hit the fan, they would always come to me to help them with the difficult stuff.
Reminds me of a psychological study that was done that basically said, those were below average in skill almost always overestimated their skills greatly, and as actual skill increases, the less overestimated their self evaluation was to the point where the most skilled quite often actually underestimated their skills. That's the problem with everyone knowing what everyone else makes. People have an incorrect valuation of their own skills and contribution the vast majority of the time.
Did you find one thing I wrote that was not true? If so, I beg your correction.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Also, when people know each other's salaries, it tends to make people discontent, when they'd previously been happy. Everyone wants to make more than everyone else. When people don't know each other's salaries, they're generally happy if they think they're making market rate. Want a recipe for a nasty workplace? Negotiate different salaries for each employee, and then let them all know who's making what.
If the employees are paid differently, there need to be visible reasons why, like qualifications, recognized quality of work, higher productivity, etc. When pay is perceived as FAIR, it doesn't cause resentment and in fact reinforces the motivations that you want in your employees. You want to be paid like Molly? Then turn out quality and quantity of work that match what Molly does.
I work for the Canadian Forces. I know what all my co-workers earn. Of course, that employer treats us like adults. Pay shouild be public knowledge.
I am a manager and I agree with that. The valuable employees are not the ones who grouse about their pay or even worry much about it... because they're getting paid well. If I'm not happy with your work, you won't get a raise from me. Instead I'll be telling you what you need to fix to come up to snuff. But all my employees also get complimented when they do things right and rewards when they do them better than par.
I think the fundamental issue you'll run into, when trying to apply the ethical standard you describe, is determining what a "fair" market price is for someone's labor.
I don't think you'll find a single, undeniably superior way of reckoning what it should be.
I accept your challenge. Determining fair market price when all buyers and sellers have information on all current transactions is undeniable more accurate and predictable than determining fair market price when the price of all transactions is a carefully guarded secret.
My wife just negotiated working from home prior to being hired full-time at a very conservative (read old) company. She'd been a contractor with them for the past year, and worked from home then, but they don't let any full-time employees work from home. Except her, so far as we know. Why? It was really important to her and she was willing to walk if she didn't get it, and they knew she could have a new job in less than a day in this market for her position.
Is that favoritism? I really doubt they favor her more than their existing employees. It's just what mattered to her. She didn't push on the salary or the hours or the responsibilities, either, just the work location.
The agreement between employer and employee is a free-market deal, just the same as between the company and customer. I think employers that share your attitude that employees should accept what crumbs you give them (a.k.a. "bleed me dry" from the opposite perspective) find themselves out of business shortly, or using a revolving cast of unskilled workers that can never do the job right for their pay.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Quite right.
Here's how I would try though:
I would evaluate the value of my company's product or service in the market at large. This is the starting point. How much is that service actually worth, as determined by the market. Don't cook this number because you think you are awesome. Use the domestic figure.
Now, subtract 10% from that value. Always make your projections conservative, because "shit fucking happens." Better to constantly report a windfall, than to appear to suffer economic adversity.
Itemize the costs to provide that service. This includes the costs your employees have in order to reach your requirements for hire. (Education costs, etc.) Completely ignore what industry pay rates are at this point. We are determining equity, not the status quo.
State a corporate growth goal. How much profit do you need to make to reach that goal? Write this number down. This number should be sensible, not some absurd value like 100%. 5 to 10% is "high". Be conservative. Aim to break this goal with voracious abandon if possible, but don't set impossible goals.
Using the numbers you now have, honestly evaluate how many people you will need to reach the necessary output required to meet your growth target, and of what types and disciplines. Employees of different disciplines have different intrinsic costs for them to be hirable. Adjust their basic equity pay accordingly. You should give each employee around 1000 to 2000 dollars a month free spending money in your projection. Include food and fuel costs, education costs, and the costs of 2.5 children and a spouse. A lawyer needs to be paid more, because they spend more time in the university than an accountant. After the bills are added up, they should be treated the same in terms of their disposable income.
(The hard part) set your pay scale to the same value system.
*NOW* compare your equitable rates against industry standard rates.
Prioritize the actual value in your company each type of employee actually has. How many janitors does it really take to keep the premesis clean? Etc. Where there is a disproportionately high industry standard wage compared to actual employment costs, seek to eliminate positions in the labor pool so that reaching industry pay rate parity does not extensively increase your projected labor budget. This means cutting management positions. Strictly evaluate just how many meetings people really need to attend, how many bosses production staff actually require to work efficiently, and then use this as gospel. Allow the 10% cut on projected value of service make up the slack that can't be ironed out. (But always check your numbers!)
In cases where your projected equitable pay greatly exceeds industry standard pay, leave it high. Dont shaft your employees.
Take all this nice information you collected and digested, and turn it into a nice, bright little flier. When people drop an application, give them a copy of it, and discuss its contents, and why you adhere to it like gospel. Let them know that every 10 years, you hold an audit of the payscale, and adjust it honestly and with integrity. If the position they are applying for will get paid way more than industry standard, make sure they understand exactly why you are paying them more. If the position they are applying for is clearly overpaid in terms of standard compensation by this metric, let them know exactly why you are exceptionally picky about who you will hire, and that the limits on management salaries are fixed. Openly share your own salary to drive the point home. No exceptions. If they don't want the job, don't hire them.
The CEO's and board's pay are given additional constraints, such that their rate of statistical overpayment shall never exceed 100% of the standard takehome value. If this means legal gets paid more, too fucking bad.
This information would be available publicly, along with the quarterly finance reports. This includes the conclusions about statistical over and underpayments against industry
Business is a cuthroat enterprise. As such, there is a clear, and present advantage to shafting employees and keeping them ignorant with information control. If you can pay your people peanuts and get away with it, why on earth would you ever want them to know that they are getting shafted? Profit man! Profit! Its why you started the business!
Maybe you started the business because you wanted a good job and couldn't find anyone hiring?
There are people who don't believe a transaction is successful for them unless it hurts the other party. These people are never trying to establish long-term business relationships based on mutual success or respect. While some of these people may stay in business, I imagine they live their lives full of anger and high blood pressure. Meanwhile, I don't think they're actually doing any better than nice people, because the subset of customers that learn they are assholes will never buy from them again, the subset of suppliers that won't tolerate being treated like shit will walk from the account, and the subset of good employers that won't work in that environment quit. With lower volume, fewer bidders, and self-fullfilling-prophecy-good-for-nothing employees, the cycle continues.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
The thing is though, each individual employee is different and each employee should really be paid according to their individual actions. It doesn't make sense to pay all people who's title is X, $Y if their abilities and talents differ. Some people are much more skilled and can get a lot more work done, or much higher quality of work done in an hour so of course they should be paid higher than those who do less, even if the job description is the same.
Its completely stupid to base pay on things such as experience and degrees rather than who actually gets the stuff done. As an employer I'd much rather pay $15 an hour to someone who provides me with $25 an hour of revenue who might not have that degree or that much experience rather than pay $20 an hour to someone who only makes me $23 an hour of revenue with a masters degree and 15 years of experience. Of course I'm going to keep that same employee because they are still making me money, but I'd much rather reward the first employee with higher pay because he's giving me much more benefit than the second employee.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
...he's the boss's lover, brother, illegitimate son...
billybob? He's probably all three
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
everyone uses HOSTS files, everything running Windows, Mac, linux, iOS, and Android has a HOSTS file.
nobody's perfect
Mitt Romney, (aka Ronald II)
Reagan was willing to raise taxes, to work with Tip O'Neal to hammer out agreements and then stick to those agreements, and to use deficits to increase government hiring during an economic crisis. With a record like that, there's no way Reagan could have won the nomination for president in 2012. Although Reagan could have probably beaten that (by modern GOP standards) pinko Richard Nixon or that clearly socialist Dwight Eisenhower.
Mitt Romney is just yet another sleazebag politician out for more money and power. If he's for getting rid of the NLRB, it's not out of any ideology, but because he thinks his stock holdings will do better without the fear of workers doing silly things like wanting to be paid enough to eat.
I am officially gone from
Overall you have given a pretty good lay out of an equitable pay scale. There are a couple of problems with it, although they could all probably be ironed out. The first one is that, if I am understanding what you wrote, you are figuring on paying each employee between $12,000 and $24,000 a year over of discretionary spending money ($1,000-$2,000 a month). I have worked for companies that did not have the profit margins to pay that much to the number of employees they had to have to operate (especially when you consider that you figured that as discretionary income for a person with a non-working spouse and 2.5 kids). The other problem is that some skill sets will be indispensable to running the company. Some of those skill sets may be in short supply (that is, there are more jobs calling for those skills than there are people with those skills). The final problem is that making the calculations to establish this equitable pay scale is expensive in time and/or money.
That being said, the idea behind your post is a great one.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
And you don't think the brother is discriminating in favor of family and against all others in the workplace? You think lover is a magic category? I'm just asking. I don't know the answer. I don't know where the line is drawn. I just know that when you do start drawing lines of what is and what isn't discrimination, you are building a smug sense of entitlement in some and discontent in others.
This is seriously, seriously wrong.
Why on earth would someone spend the effort to be a lawyer if they just get paid the same? How do you think exceptional employees would feel about carrying everyone else like that? Everyone's going to be HAPPY to be a carbon copy cog in the great machine? If everyone has the same disposable incomes... people would be fighting for the easy jobs. The unhappiness has only moved from feeling taken advantage of due to differences in wages to feeling taken advantage of due to the vast differences in job difficulty across the entire company's payroll for the same disposable income. Now, instead of occasionally remembering the injustice every paycheck or two... you're constantly reminded of the inequity of your workload vs. others. It'd be miserable.
This is literal communism... like, on a real commune. It 'works' on a commune because there's no real product besides the group survival (unless they're led by morally bankrupt a-holes who are taking advantage of the naive, which seems to happen a lot) and virtually all of the work is unskilled and interchangable. They usually regularly rotate positions and find ways to punish people who aren't pulling their weight.
You're valuing the COMPANY product according to market rates, but you're completely disregarding the individual skills and product of the employees. You can't combine those, they're not compatible.
A person, like a company, has a product or a set of products. How valuable the product is to others should be reflected somehow in how that person is paid. Personally, I'd rather have the assembly line guy who works twice as fast get paid twice as much. The sales guy who can sell twice as much should be paid twice as much. However, I recognize that this would put too much pressure on the average person... so a system much like we currently have where the compensation for performance is much more gradual is fine by me. The extreme performers can go their own way if they want to do better.
I do wish that pay for different jobs could be somehow magically rebalanced according to the actual worth of what the person does for society, though. Not 1:1, though... probably something like "1 + ln(relative_societal_value)".
Uh...in both of those cases you're out of business anyway with those numbers.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
I also don't want my coworkers knowing what I make because they will likely try demanding more than they are making when they don't deserve it. They aren't nearly as good ... People have an incorrect valuation of their own skills and contribution the vast majority of the time.
Indeed.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
The 1000 to 2000 figure was given for dense population centers where prices of goods are artificially inflated by distribution costs. The luxury goods they buy will be more expensive than somebody in a less dense area. This is a failure of the approach, I openly admit, since it implies a dense urban environment.
A better metric for disposable income would be price check many common luxury goods in the local market, and allot a disposable income that would allow purchase of the most common ones, and still leave a surplus.
This value will be different for each locality. This was the intention with the values listed. When you consider incidental luxury costs of an additional car payment, etc, 1000 a month in disposable income can get gobbled quickly. This money is intended to allow people to save for retirement, to have emergency money in case of disasters, pay for schooling for dependent children, and to improve their quality of living, such as continuing their adult education outside the vocational niche you have hired them for.
You expect to profit from the business relationship. They should as well.
The thing that concerns me about proposals such as this is that they are usually a smokescreen for a "new" form of government that is actually worse than existing government. Either that, or they are the hopelessly naive rantings of someone who doesn't really know what's wrong but has some big ideas about how to fix it.
Ultimately the problem comes down to a lack of ownership, accountability, and responsibility. In society today, most of what's out there is owned by a relatively small number of people who are supposed to be in charge of and responsible for their property. In reality, people who own property typically rely on tricks to avoid liability while living a lavish lifestyle that is supposedly their reward for a job well done. The rest of society are likewise unwilling to take responsibility for the situation, but are happy to let others be in charge so that they can blame their problems on someone else. The two parties play this off as a conflict, but in reality they both accept the arrangement due to what can only be described as a mental disorder characterized by a delusional world view and dysfunctional/addictive personal habits.
That's where these kind of rantings come from. The haves imagine a world where they can be fee from being hassled by the have-nots who will mindlessly do their bidding. The have-nots imagine a world where the things are taken from the haves and given to the have-nots, or some wise committee of smart people who will surely do a better job of managing them. It's all a ridiculous fantasy, of course, but it keeps people stuck in their various ruts by feeding into their existing delusions about how the world works.
That would be the [favoritism] poison, would it not? Sally gets paid more than Alice, because?
Maybe Sally was a better negotiator during the hiring process. Or maybe Alice negotiated other considerations, such as flextime or telecommuting. Or maybe Sally does better work and has gotten higher bonuses. Or maybe Sally was hired when that job skill (tech writing, for the sake of example) was harder to fill. None of these are favoritism... they are "valid" market- and merit-based reasons.
To DoofusOfDeath's point, it's still to the employer's benefit to discourage information sharing because when Alice hears that Sally is being $n thousand more per annum, she's not going to remember that she was hired when the market was flooded with tech writers or that she's pretty bad about taking initiative despite constant prodding from her boss. The drama and/or legal headaches that follow hurt the bottom line.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
And you don't think the brother is discriminating in favor of family and against all others in the workplace? You think lover is a magic category? I'm just asking. I don't know the answer. I don't know where the line is drawn. I just know that when you do start drawing lines of what is and what isn't discrimination, you are building a smug sense of entitlement in some and discontent in others.
But there are plenty of businesses that make no bones about being family businesses. In a family business, nepotism is the norm and expected and you don't expect to get an equal shot with the boss's brother or son.
If you note, the proposal meets or exceeds the free market values.
It never undercuts.
It relies heavily on free market forces to work. Collusion on labor costs in the market (as per planned economies) would completely cripple it.
I agree. Wage data must be availabl, for free, and publicly. The proposal depends upon that being the case.
I am sure all the "job creator" corporate executives who constantly bemoan any and all government regulations claiming they interfere with the "free market" will certainly oppose this kind of transparency. However, a common knowledge of market prices forms the very basis of free markets!!! I personally wish the IRS would publish personal income data for all US citizens. Then we would see real market competition, people striving to find where the money is going and attempting to compete for those positions. If an employer is over or under compensating an employee they should certainly be able to market a rational reason for their action. As the saying goes, "Knowledge is Power" and those in the labor consumer role will do whatever they are legally allowed to do enhance their bargaining power.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
You know that feeling when you really think you deserve more money and you want more prestige? That nice bundled driving force when you believe you can achieve it? That feeling is relative. It never goes away.
doesn't mean you 'should'.....
it'd be relatively safe discussing compensation with coworkers when employees work under the same contract (e.g. union shop) or the wage scales are public knowledge (e.g. public sector jobs) and are adhered to.. BUT in other instances, it can be a very dangerous topic of discussion... you don't really want to be on either end of it where there is a significant discrepancy in pay, as it will rarely end well.
and regardless of the legality of employers retaliating or discriminating against union proponents and organizers, you probably don't want them catching wind of efforts to unionize until it's all but a done deal and you're set to vote and move forward to create the union.
This is seriously, seriously wrong.
Why on earth would someone spend the effort to be a lawyer if they just get paid the same? How do you think exceptional employees would feel about carrying everyone else like that? Everyone's going to be HAPPY to be a carbon copy cog in the great machine? If everyone has the same disposable incomes... people would be fighting for the easy jobs. The unhappiness has only moved from feeling taken advantage of due to differences in wages to feeling taken advantage of due to the vast differences in job difficulty across the entire company's payroll for the same disposable income. )".
Maybe, if pay was the same, people would actually be able to focus on doing the jobs that they ENJOY, instead of feeling like they had to take a different position to afford to eat. This has the added benefit of the fact that people who are doing jobs they enjoy/care about tend to do better at those jobs and try harder, so the company better results as well. Bottom line, some people enjoy the work of lawyers, they would still go through the trouble to become lawters. Other people enjoy managing, they would still take the time to be managers. Some people enjoy being janitors, they would feel free to do that without feeling like they were missing out on a paycheck.
I take it you've never actually run a business. Unless you're running a mundane manual labor business (assembly line work, fruit picking, etc), employees are not expenses. They are the lifeblood of the company. You need their creativity and vitality for the company to prosper, because the employees are the company. Without the employees the company dies. Without the company, the employees can just start up another company doing what they were doing at the old company. If I didn't need the employees, I wouldn't have hired them in the first place.
People often poke fun of the government for awarding contracts to the lowest bidder. The private businesses I've been involved with and helped run didn't/don't do that. We recognized that the higher priced item can actually represent a better value. The same goes for employees. What's crucial is the value the employee offers - productivity per dollar of salary, not lowest salary. I've never had a problem with employees talking with each other about salary (and in many other countries it's not taboo like it is here). I've had to keep pretty good tabs on each employee's contributions and shortcomings for figuring out bonuses. If one of them comes to me complaining about his/her pay, I have a pretty detailed list of reasons why they're being paid what they are, and what they could do to improve their prospects of a raise. In fact if it weren't taboo here, often I'd like to be able to talk with them about it openly to encourage the underperformers to do better. "If you could do this, this, and this better, we could pay you better like we do Joe."
A company trying to prevent its employees from talking with each other about salary is a sign of a failing company IMHO. They're hemorrhaging cash so are desperately trying to cut as many expenses as they can, even if they end up cutting off meat along with the fat. If your company is trying to foist that upon you, I'd suggest either brushing off the resume or learning some skills so you're no longer a mundane manual laborer.
I take it you've never actually run a business. Unless you're running a mundane manual labor business (assembly line work, fruit picking, etc), employees are not expenses. They are the lifeblood of the company. You need their creativity and vitality for the company to prosper, because the employees are the company. Without the employees the company dies.
Unfortunately, far too many companies don't think that way.
While some of these people may stay in business, I imagine they live their lives full of anger and high blood pressure. Meanwhile, I don't think they're actually doing any better than nice people
You're caught up in a small-town mentality. In the wider world you can go from place to place fucking up until someone with an audience notices. You're also forgetting about corporations entirely which would be hilarious if it weren't frightening; NEVER FORGET who is calling the shots, man. A bunch of people build a corporation and then it gets taken over and torn down in no time. Only because corporations have been permitted to grow so large and powerful that their death throes can take years or even decades.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So employers try to scare employees away from gathering that kind of info.
So acquire that information in secret. The specific methods of how this might be done are left as an exercise for the reader, but suffice it to say that most offices aren't exactly high security locations. This information can be obtained, provided that one is willing to be creative.
Pay does NOT need to be the same. What pay needs is to be SUFFICIENT so that no matter WHAT job you do you can SURVIVE as something more than an ANIMAL. It's called a minimum wage and it hasn't kept up with inflation in how long?
When you permit people to hire people for less than a living wage you create conditions that breed effective slavery. I don't want to live in that country. But, when you reward everyone the same regardless of their effort or production, you breed mediocrity. I personally have missed out on a job because the ignoranus who has the position that should be mine is being protected by a union. He doesn't do his job, I get paid on a contract basis at taxpayer expense to fill in for him. He buys a second or third Harley and so extends his retirement a year to pay for it, and education suffers, and student information security suffers because he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing and never has and doesn't care to learn because he doesn't have to and he gets paid anyway.
The hilarious thing is that all you have to do to actually fix the problem is raise the minimum wage, but that's not something that the powers that be want to do, because it would interfere with their ability to subjugate the working class.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I've done the academic part of becoming a lawyer in the UK, and from my point of view money wasn't the big motivator for me. To be fair, I'm lucky enough to have the personal means to fund this as kind of a "hobby".
I have to say the work that the average lawyer does is pretty mundane - even for a barrister most of the workload is far from interesting - remember that the money is in commercial matters. I can see why you need to pay them lots of money - the enjoyment you get from doing the work is next to none most of the time.
Law itself, however, is very interesting, Jurisprudence and contract law especially. Reading law (pardon my pun) is a bit like reading code. You have to decipher the material and understand the thought process of the people behind it.
Back on topic - they way I see it, you mixed up cause and effect - Law, like other professions, uses their professional standards requirements as a way to limit the supply of lawyers, which in turn increases their pay. All professions do this to a certain degree. I think some of this is to legitimately uphold high standards in a profession, but you have to wonder - 50 years ago, it didn't take 7 years and tens of thousands of pounds/dollars of debt to become a lawyer. In the end, the high cost (in terms of time, effort and tuition) of becoming a lawyer may actually prevent people that actually want to be lawyer from taking this path - and only attract those that are primarily interested in the money you can make in the profession.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
Want a recipe for a nasty workplace? Negotiate different salaries for each employee, and then let them all know who's making what.
So don't pay people different amounts for the same jobs/pay grades, or have a well established openly available system for differentiating between employees, like KPI's, seniority bonuses to encourage staff retention. That the "socialist" way. Most employers are scared of that way, so they prefer the capital^H^H^H^H^H^H^H robber baron way, where they treat labour as a "free market", except they don't allow anyone to make informed decisions. The way Is see it, either go the "socialist" route, or the full free market route, where every salary is a negotiated individually, and every salary is public knowledge.
all buyers and sellers have information on all current transactions
it's also one of the prerequisites of economic 'science'.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Or the fact that the Janator has more important work to do than most office workers.
Don't believe me? Try working in a place that hasn't been cleaned for a week, especially with an unmaintained bathroom..
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Yeah, and the real funny thing is he might be actually making less than his coworkers.
There are other ways than money, to motivate people to do good work. At the moment I'm earning a salary that is comfortable enough, so I am more motivated with a more interesting job than pay rise. Most of my co-worker who I know their opinion, thinks the same. They are interested to have some time to pursue their own interest within the scope of their wider profession. Of course, if not everything is about money, capitalism is threatened in its existence. Better be secretive, create unnecessary hierarchies and generate in-fights and envy, so the people are keep up with making money, instead of exciting and useful things. People who generally have their wage set by their job instead of having an individual agreement tend to be more friendly to each other, tend to be more open from my personal experience anyway.
You still have the problem of businesses that do not have sufficient margin to pay such wages. The businesses I am familiar with that did not have such margin were in a dense urban environment.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
"lazy, entitlied, childish pain-in-the-ass" I thought an employer would fire Alice for all these instead of not giving a salary. If you still stick with the employee, and they do the same job, they are ought to be paid the same. It's just this fucking simple.
If somebody works as a janitor, there's no reason to base their salary over their negotiation skills, is there? I mean, a janitor with good negotiation skill does the same job as the other with less. A janitors work is to clean up the floors. It's a binary: either done, or not. If a janitor doesn't clean up enough, there's every reason there to fire him/her. Employers hire people for do some specific thing. The pay is on the condition whether they do it, or not. There's a standard openly, which is needed to be kept the job. No messing about with the wages. Market fluctuations do not justify the different measure between people. "Valid" market reasons has nothing to do with merit-based reasons. The market do not recognize talent, the market do not recognize anything given that it is nothing but the struggle between individuals over more shit to own. And all the end is, that "valid market reasons" are used for breaking the free market ideal (well informed seller and buyer), so it means that the market ideology is self-contradictory, useless bragging about a platonic non-sense.
You are right, but for every ethical person in business looking to build a successful and sustainable enterprise, you've got 2 willing to screw everybody so they can get rich quick. Exploitation was the norm in Victorian times after all.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
No. There has to be some boundary condition. How does someone feel they "deserve" $250,000,000.00?
Is it possible for any individual to have "earned" that much? Even if I'm a CEO and my company's profits have increased by $50billion, what does "earned" mean?
You are welcome on my lawn.
It must be a defect in my character or maybe my thinking, but I cannot wrap my mind around someone who is worth $250,000,000.00 worrying about boosting his stock holdings.
That's the thing about greed. It's never satisfied.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
But that would be a free market! Companies are notoriously terrified of such a concept.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Employers don't want you to discuss with your co-workers what your pay and benefits packages are, because they offer sweet deals to people they like, and that favoritism is not always above board.
In my experience one of the reasons that employers don't want people discussing salaries is that they know their pay raises don't keep up with the market. They hire employee A at a fair rate on day 1 then given him 2% raises for 5 years. While the market increases 5% a year for new hires. So one day employee A is talking to employee B who was just hired and finds out that employee B is making 15% more than him. Usually inspiring employee A to either ask for a raise, which they are loath to give, or prepare his resume and look for another job. Basically if they can squelch that discussion employee A keeps happily working without ever realizing he isn't getting the going rate for his labor. If the employer can get by with that his ability to pay lower salaries over time lowers his costs and makes his business more profitable. I think I have gotten this prohibition about talking about salaries from every company I have ever worked with. As far as I can tell the benefit to not talking is pretty much all to the employer.
Of course workers are not allowed to use free speech! It would lead to a slippery slope where soon where workers would expect to be treated like humans by corporations.
We all agreed remember, that after the 1% ruling class crashed the economy that the only solution is for the 99% losers to give up more of their rights and benefits.
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act [...] allows employees to join labor unions and to discuss working conditions with each other."
No, actually that's a God given right, which the U.S. Constitution explicitly reserves to the People.
the communists in practice treat the conditions created up to now by production and intercourse as inorganic conditions, without, however, imagining that it was the plan or the destiny of previous generations to give them material, and without believing that these conditions were inorganic for the individuals creating them.
is babbling nonsense.
What do you do if no one ENJOYS being a migrant laborer at harvest time, or being a coal miner, etc? Even if we managed to improve the working conditions for everyone, the fact remains that we need more people doing some jobs than others. Pay currently provides some incentive for that (when comparing pay among positions that require comparable skills, unpleasant ones tend to pay more), but if you can find another incentive I'm all ears.
I agree with what you're saying but, as a manager, I have another issue that cannot be solved with completely transparent transactions (even if that was possible):
Salary rates are set by what the market will pay. When demand goes up, candidates know to ask for more. I'm desperate to hire now, which means either I ask my team to keep working 50/60 hr weeks, or I hire another person for (10-20%) more than what my current team (of equivalent experience) makes. Of course, I cannot simply raise everyone to this new level because I barely have the budget to hire this new person at a normal rate, much less this inflated rate. So, either I keep people in the dark and relatively happy, or I tell people what's up (they know anyway), and now they leave for greener pastures. Yes we can have talks about things that will happen "one day" but I can't promise anything I can't deliver, and right now I have no clue how the market will turn. Everyone wants to make more money when the market is great, no one wants to cut their paycheck when it dips.
With perfect information, I am at the mercy of the hiring market (bubble?), and my operating budget climbs while I don't necessarily get any more productivity (per person) with an increase salaries paid. Sure, I can look elsewhere to save money too, but I don't want to be the PHB that cuts the free coffee and tea so I can raise only one guy up to the market rate. Or do I?
The question is not whether it's discrimination - as you point out is clearly is - but whether it's discrimination against a protected class. Non-family members are not legally protected.
It sounds like you are doing things the right way.
I think a parallel to this discussion is companies need well known objective metrics to judge employees by. If someone feels they are being underpaid, management can "show their work" as to how they arrived at the salaries. Also, you can define goals for your employees.
While you are surely correct in some respects, you should consider that in your Billybob example, good ol' Billybob is likely smart enough to know to keep his mouth shut. The more likely "concern" for companies are when two people both assume they have been dealt with fairly and without favortism suddenly find out one of them has been screwed. OF course "screwed" is a relative term because you enter into the employment contract you agreed to and if you think you could have gotten better that is your own fault for agreeing.
The real issue is that without all information available to a prosptective employee they have no way of knowing if they could have gotten better and that is the crux of the problem, companies unfairly restricting the free flow of info of the labor pool.
If you can't be good, be good at it!
DING DING DING +1 if I had not already replied to this thread.
If you can't be good, be good at it!
I think many companies should set fair, clear and objective metrics for employees - and then base pay off of it. That way, management could easily defuse any situation by sharing data with employees.
"There are people who don't believe a transaction is successful for them unless it hurts the other party"
Aren't these people called sociopaths?
If you can't be good, be good at it!
Where I worked for over 30 years every single employee's annual compensation was published and publicly available information. I was the Information Security Officer for the organization and met with sales people from lots of vendors for everything from Firewalls to Encryption tools. The standard example they always used was the need to keep salary information secret. I could see their head go into cognitive disconnect when I told them that everyone's salary was published and available on line. Watching their heads spin was one of the high points of any meeting.
I agree with what you're saying but, as a manager, I have another issue that cannot be solved with completely transparent transactions (even if that was possible):
Salary rates are set by what the market will pay. When demand goes up, candidates know to ask for more. I'm desperate to hire now, which means either I ask my team to keep working 50/60 hr weeks, or I hire another person for (10-20%) more than what my current team (of equivalent experience) makes. Of course, I cannot simply raise everyone to this new level because I barely have the budget to hire this new person at a normal rate, much less this inflated rate. So, either I keep people in the dark and relatively happy, or I tell people what's up (they know anyway), and now they leave for greener pastures. Yes we can have talks about things that will happen "one day" but I can't promise anything I can't deliver, and right now I have no clue how the market will turn. Everyone wants to make more money when the market is great, no one wants to cut their paycheck when it dips.
With perfect information, I am at the mercy of the hiring market (bubble?), and my operating budget climbs while I don't necessarily get any more productivity (per person) with an increase salaries paid. Sure, I can look elsewhere to save money too, but I don't want to be the PHB that cuts the free coffee and tea so I can raise only one guy up to the market rate. Or do I?
So in other words, you've been underpaying your employees for years and now its coming back to bite you in the ass. I'd leave your team too.
Unions are formed so that workers can demand wages higher than the labor market would actually provide. This is supposedly a good thing. If I own a business and I form a sales union with my competitors to keep prices higher the market demand provides I would be charged with price fixing and conclusion. Why should I have to pay artificial high prices for my workers but can't charge artificial high prices for my product?
I can't wrap my mind around someone with $250,000,000 having any reason to be president, unless it's to fight some great injustice.
Sadly, I've pretty clearly figured out what Romney's 'injustice' that he wants to fight is: His super-rich friends aren't quite as super-rich as they want.
Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with these people? Give me enough money that I can spend, I dunno, $1,000,000 off the bat for a nice, custom-built house here and car and a condo in Florida (Well, I'd personally rather have one in NYC or something, I hate the beach, but I'd enjoy vacations to NYC, see a show, tour places, etc. By 'the beach' I mean 'your favorite vacation spot''.), and $200,000 a year in interest after taxes. This seems to be about $10,000,000 or so.
I can't understand how people have multiple houses like Romney. You have one house, and maybe a vacation place. A small place, because you're never there. Maybe two, although I'd probably just rent hotel suites at that point. Why do you have multiple giant houses that you can only live, at most, six weeks a year? Even just having two of those means you have to have duplicates of everything you own. Which is perhaps not a problem, cost-wise, for the super-rich, but seems to be a time issue in buying that stuff.
But it's not a time issue, because they just hire people to buy stuff for their other houses, at which point we have reached absurdity. If you're going to live a week in a place you never go, with stuff picked out by other people, who cook you food and make your bed, you have officially managed to purchase your very own giant hotel suite. Congratz on that, but I must point out that renting a penthouse suite would have been a fuckload cheaper.
And why would Romney bother to run for president? I mean...just...what? Why do they bother to do anything that could even vaguely count as 'work' at that point? I would only do what I enjoy doing.
Perhaps Romney thinks he'd enjoy being president. Which brings to mind something Douglas Adams said about that subject.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
That's why I always laugh whenever people complain about the salaries janitors and garbagemen make. There's a reason they need to offer those salaries, and those that do the job usually earn what they make.
Also, when people know each other's salaries, it tends to make people discontent, when they'd previously been happy. Everyone wants to make more than everyone else. When people don't know each other's salaries, they're generally happy if they think they're making market rate. Want a recipe for a nasty workplace? Negotiate different salaries for each employee, and then let them all know who's making what.
Two things here: One, this is why I tend to shy away from discussions about how much I make, unless I'm already at a high enough rate that I don't care. Knowing that information is only going to make me more depressed, or it's only going to make someone else resent me. Many times it's not worth it.
Second is the idea of posting everyone's salaries. There are places where this is done, and everyone knows what everyone else makes. And so there's a lot more pressure on you to perform up to the level of that salary, in order to justify what you're making.
You know, somewhere in Africa, some dirt farmer is playing the world's smallest violin for you.
You're basically saying that, since it makes your job harder, it's completely fine for this deception to occur, which leads straight to huge amounts of abuse.
jobs are hard to find. shut up, slave!
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
If you don't like it, you're more than welcome to not work there. And not everyone is going to be fighting for the "easy" jobs. There still are people who enjoy challenges, and actually doing work, and these people would generally be happier at a company that was extremely up front about salary discussions than one that obscures them.
If everyone got the same, vast swathes of society would take the lazy/easy way out and just be a burger flipper or walmart greeter, and make just as much as the einstiens and goddards trying to get to the stars.
So fucking what? Are we really better off by forcing these people to do something they likely have no interest in, or even hate, just to survive?
According to Republicans, they're called "Job Creators".
To be fair, most government agencies would like to decide which contractors to use based on their abilities and merits, not the bid price. However, people who bitch too much about taxes have got it in their minds that governments have to use the lowest bidder, otherwise they're "wasting money", regardless of how much paying the higher priced contractor to do the job competently in the first place would save over the long run.
Why is it that people like you always jump on the "entitled" bullshit? Is it that inconceivable to you that someone would actually be screwed over on pay?
I think employers that share your attitude that employees should accept what crumbs you give them (a.k.a. "bleed me dry" from the opposite perspective) find themselves out of business shortly
That doesn't really seem to be the case.
If Person Y is really better than Person X, then it should be easy to justify why Person Y gets paid more, and thus disclosing salaries is not a problem. However, in the situation where Person Y is getting more money "just because", or due to favoritism or some other bullshit, then no, you're not going to want to disclose the salary.
Maybe Sally was a better negotiator during the hiring process
Shouldn't matter at all. Negotiation has nothing to do with the actual work you're doing.
To DoofusOfDeath's point, it's still to the employer's benefit to discourage information sharing because when Alice hears that Sally is being $n thousand more per annum, she's not going to remember that she was hired when the market was flooded with tech writers or that she's pretty bad about taking initiative despite constant prodding from her boss. The drama and/or legal headaches that follow hurt the bottom line.
So you think the company is completely justified in hiding that information for the end goal of simply fucking Alice over? Why the fuck should the labor conditions when Alice was hired matter now, especially if she's been with the company for a while? If they're both doing the same work, why should Sally get paid more, everything else being equal?
He also assumes employers are always fair, Often, employers will take advantage of things like a person's family status, or the job market in order to extort workers into accepting less pay.
And why the fuck should that be accepted?
It actually seems pretty reasonable that companies might want to restrict employees from releasing confidential company information.
It does, until what's deemed as "confidential company information" becomes so broad as to include salary, working conditions, and other things that really have no legitimate reason to be kept secret.
Reagan was willing to raise taxes
Funny how almost no Republicans actually remember this.
I can't wrap my mind around someone with $250,000,000 having any reason to be president, unless it's to fight some great injustice.
Simply because they can? Many of these people have already conquered business, and so politics is simply one more thing to try and do. Once you've crossed that line into having metric butt-tons of money, there really are few actual challenges left.
I mean...just...what? Why do they bother to do anything that could even vaguely count as 'work' at that point?
Same motivation behind serial entrepreneurs. Many of them make enough to rest on their laurels from their first or second company, but they keep at it, because they constantly want to be doing something. They enjoy starting the business.
So in other words, you've been underpaying your employees for years and now its coming back to bite you in the ass. I'd leave your team too.
That's one way of looking at it if you ignore how salaries are set, what role outsourcing plays, how long-term revenue models are made, what overhead costs are like, rising costs of goods sold but continual pressure to reduce sales prices, etc.
Maybe I was a tech lead and took over as manager because I want to fix the mess? I make less than the senior tech leads and I'm happy with that because they have the skills. As a first line manager I actually want to pay the team as much as I can (morale, retention, etc).
When the economy crashed in '08 and the company held on to people, running through company reserves. It took two years to recover to previous revenue, and for the last two years we (the industry) have now created a bubble (sell sell sell!). A bubble created by stock prices falling and clients not spending money because of their fear, and then ramping up because now they are comfortable again. Something we have no control over. Now the industry is paying for this shortage but we have uncertain revenue. Would you be OK if I paid you more now and axed you six months from now when we don't hit our targets, or would you rather stay on long term but not make the current rate? Can I lower your rate when the market drops?
Maybe we are paying what we can based on the revenue and profit we are making, due to the (lower) bids we submit to stay competitive in this world market; a market with increased costs due to higher salaries, but not increased sale prices to match. Maybe we compete against international government-sponsored companies that don't have to turn a profit or domestic companies that outsource and can throw 2-3X as many people on a project than I can. They also don't have the overhead costs we have here (some cases less insurance and no retirement pay) Perhaps I should start outsourcing too? Where will you go when you leave here and our competitors follow us?
Do you have a backup plan in case the market re-aligns and you're the first one to go because you're paid more than everyone else (for the same level of work)? Of course you are free to come and go as you want, but when I interview guys now I want to make sure they will have some tenure and help me ride out the storm.
These problems aren't unique to our company of course. Some companies paying the "market" rates now just landed a large gig. Next year we will land something similar, and our competitors won't win the bid. Then we will staff up, probably scalping anyone that can make a bit more, and then we will set the âoemarketâ rates until the next bubble pops. Then we get to âoedownsizeâ because revenues are down again and our operating costs are through the roof. Right now salaries (with industry experience) are 40% higher than the national average for the same title, and we live in a city with a low cost of living.
Don't get me wrong, there are managers that don't deserve their crazy bonuses or salaries, but I don't think that's typical of front line managers. Yet we have to deal with cards we have. I would appreciate your insight in how to pay people more in these times. To me, these are challenging issues.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm not necessarily blaming you (this is /., so comments come with a healthy dose of snark). Most manager have indirect control at best of their employees' pay. But the fact is that your employees are working long hours for little pay, and that's unsustainable. Comfort and stability might be keeping them there; hell, a few might even stay out of gratitude for the way you handled things in 2008. Eventually, though, they're going to realize they can make 20% more elsewhere and they'll leave. You can either start bumping salaries now, make arrangements to hire less-skilled peopled and make peace with the fact that all your experienced workers are leaving, or accept a lower profit margin and pay people what they deserve. It sounds like your business is on the road to ruin. I hope that's not the case, but having to make choices like this is a big red flag.
If somebody works as a janitor, there's no reason to base their salary over their negotiation skills, is there? I mean, a janitor with good negotiation skill does the same job as the other with less. A janitors work is to clean up the floors. It's a binary: either done, or not.
Precisely wrong: there are qualitative attributes to every job, even janitorial work. Maybe both janitors get the floor clean, but one does it with a good attitude, is helpful to people who are lost, is always on time, and never throws away important papers that some cubical drone has dumbly propped across the corner of his trash bin. And this is a thousand times more true for white collar jobs... there are trillions of (valid) things that make a worker better or worse than their peers in a particular position. Unfortunately, it's not feasible to identify all of these factors ahead of time, communicate them to the employee, document observed performance, and prove it all in court years down the road.
Market fluctuations do not justify the different measure between people. "Valid" market reasons has nothing to do with merit-based reasons.
I'm not equating market- and merit-based reasons. I'm saying that you're going to have some pay discrimination that results from market realities... and that's not among the "Invalid" reasons that wierd_w lists (favoritism, sexism, etc.). Is it fair? No, not in the same sense that merit-based compensation is fair. But how are you going to force them to be the same? Let Alice sue her employer and make them prove the difference? Let the employer decrease Sally's wage so they can increase's Alice's? Let the employer fire Sally so they can hire a replacement at Alice's salary? Force the employer to increase Alice's salary... making them paranoid to hire during boom periods? These options seem to be more unfair (and have more unintended consequences) than leaving the discrepancy as-is.
(Just as an aside... have you ever taken advantage of a sale to buy more of a product than you normally would? Did you go back to the store and reimburse them when the sale ended? Did you ever pay the MSRP price on a clearance item? Why not? The product itself may not have feelings, wants, and desires, but the people who helped create and get that product to you sure do, and it's not "fair" [by your logic] that you paid them $1/unit on one day and $3/unit some other time when it filled the same specific need for you on both occasions.)
"valid market reasons" are used for breaking the free market ideal (well informed seller and buyer)
I'm not defending the employers who tried to restrict information flow b/t coworkers. The US Labor Board made the right decision here. What I am defending is DoofusOfDeath's point that employers want to restrict salary discussions for reasons beyond the sinister/invalid ones that wierd_w lists.
The market does not recognize talent
In one company I know, they can't give job candidates a simple programming quiz. They can't require them to write a single SQL statement, even though the hire will have to do this on the job every damn day. Because, to do that, the company would have to jump thru enough bureaucratic hoops to prove that a simple, objective test wasn't some sinister attempt to exclude minorities. If merit is the ideal, this sure seems to be pushing us further away...
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
No, you are paid based on how many people can do your job. Lots of people can clean up shit, so it doesn't usually pay all that much unless there's union action going on.
Wen I joined a software company several years ago they made it very clear both in writing and verbally that anyone caught talking about their salary will be fired on the spot..
False. Free speech is a right with respect to the government, not with respect to your employer.
If you have a job, you can prove this by going on facebook (or the local news) and telling everyone you hate your company, your job, your boss and that everyone should buy a competitor's products. Good luck with that, there, Johnny Free Speech.
Man, there are millions of challenges left after you've "conquered business" and accumulated $250million. There dengue fever, inner-city violence, old people with shrinking resources. There's the failure of Business to meet any of its social obligations, there's schools that aren't working. Etc etc etc. I could sit here all day and just list one big problem after another that someone with the supposed "business skills" could attack. The world is full of challenges.
For a group of guys who think government can't do anything, they sure are dying to get into government, aren't they?
No, I think it's something much more prosaic than just the notion of them having "conquered business" and are now looking for the next challenge. I think there is a nagging suspicion that their success had almost nothing to do with their own talent or hard work or innovative thinking and everything to do with being in the lucky sperm club. They believe that even with all their accumulated wealth that there is still the need to "prove themselves" because deep down they realize that (especially in the case of Gov Romney) that so far they have proven absolutely nothing about real achievement.
Regardless of how you feel about the way he made his fortune, at least Bill Gates has some notion of noblesse oblige and seems to really want to do something worthwhile with his money and position. And it's not just about looking good, either. Gates isn't looking to get some shiny accolade that will help his resume for some higher office. He seems to care, and caring is something that is increasingly short supply among our Galtian overlords.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Employers are damned if they do, damned if they don't.
If they allow you to share salaries, people who just aren't very in demand think they "should" earn more. Why, Larry who is the go-to programmer on our team "only" has a bachelor's degree and Sally (who can more or less do her job, often with Larry's help) has a master's and has been here 2 more years. By golly, Sally is being discriminated against! She won't stand for that, no-sir-ee!
So really what you need is a system where you're free to share salaries, but you can't sue because of "discrimination". If you feel you're being underpaid for _any_ reason, demand more money or leave. It's a zero sum game anyway, only so many jobs to go around so _someone_ will benefit from that job and I don't give a fuck who it is.
And why the fuck should that be accepted?
Because freedom to have a family business is in the interest of everybody who has a family, i.e. most of us.
Knowledge is power. They know. You don't. They like it that way.
No, you are paid based on how many people can do your job.
Well in the case of an office worker that would be about a billion people in India.
Can't outsource the janitor.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Negotiation has nothing to do with the actual work you're doing.
Yes, but they have a lot to do with an employee's unique qualifications, and they have a lot to do with an employee's and an employer's decision to commit to an employment relationship. Those are market realities. Maybe it's unfair, but it's not the employer's unfairness.
So you think the company is completely justified in hiding that information for the end goal of simply fucking Alice over?
No I don't. Coworkers should be free to discuss salaries with each other if they choose. I'm saying that employer's reasons for salary discrimination aren't just invalid/evil ones.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
There dengue fever, inner-city violence, old people with shrinking resources. There's the failure of Business to meet any of its social obligations, there's schools that aren't working. Etc etc etc. I could sit here all day and just list one big problem after another that someone with the supposed "business skills" could attack. The world is full of challenges.
Yeah. Although I have to admit I'm somewhat selfish. If I ended up with a bunch of money that I could spend, say, a million a year on random things, I'd send some of it off to those charities where a tiny amount of money can make a difference...I mean, imagine how many mosquito netting things that would buy.
But a good deal of it I would spend on the small town I live in, to try to help people around me. I'd, I dunno, buy run-down buildings, fix them up, and rent them shops. I'd donate to local charities and parks, and stuff like that.
I know my money could probably do more good elsewhere...but I think seeing the results of it would be impressive.
And it's entirely possible that I'd start some sort of lobbying group to try to change things for the better, but I'd probably direct that locally also, or at least at the state. Washington is too broken to fuck with, honestly, and there are billions of dollars being thrown around like it's nothing, swamping anything I could do in this hypothetical.
No, I think it's something much more prosaic than just the notion of them having "conquered business" and are now looking for the next challenge. I think there is a nagging suspicion that their success had almost nothing to do with their own talent or hard work or innovative thinking and everything to do with being in the lucky sperm club. They believe that even with all their accumulated wealth that there is still the need to "prove themselves" because deep down they realize that (especially in the case of Gov Romney) that so far they have proven absolutely nothing about real achievement.
That actually seems entirely likely. It's certainly why Donald Trump ran. (Donald Trump: The man who managed to lose two and a half fortunes to bankruptcy, and yet consistently is loaned hundreds of millions of dollars.)
And it could be why Romney is running also. Although, frankly, it's nearly impossible to figure anything out about him, as he does not appear to be an actual human being.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Brother, you're singing my song. I've believed for a long time that the best investments, even from a financial standpoint, are the ones made in ones family, community, town.
Completely selfishly, if things ever go really sideways in this society, the people around me are going to be the most important. I'm sort of a contrary survivalist. Instead of making sure I've got enough food and water stashed away for myself, I'm making sure everyone around me has more than enough. Then, I try to make sure that they don't hate me or like me enough to want to look out for me. A great side benefit is that my family is strong and close and my neighborhood is great. Not just because of me, of course, but I'm noticing a lot of other people doing the same. The last thing I ever ever want to be is a rich guy in a poor place.
I've taken this approach for a couple of decades now, and it has worked out beyond my expectations.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The last thing I ever ever want to be is a rich guy in a poor place.
I think, honestly, that's the difference between two sorts of people. Some people want to be richer than anyone they know (Which produces crazy results when you're Romney and know a 'few NASCAR owners' and whatnot.)
Other people are like 'Man, it would be cool if everyone was rich, although that can't really work. But at everyone should at least have a job they can live off of, and no one is poor. So if I had money I'd try to start some business that provided jobs or something.'.
So I'd start a local business. Or fix up a location and lease it to someone who has a good business idea, for a cut.
And the thing about it is that it's a form of investment, where you might make money...but who the heck cares? Even if you don't, you made things better off. People got paid for honest work, money moved through the economy, etc.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?