Slashdot Mirror
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."
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
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.
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.
No I am not saying it. Lafe Solomon an attorney working for the National Labor Relations Board is saying it. Read the PDF embedded in the original article:
http://mynlrb.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d4580a375cd
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
With all due respect, I imagine you will/would have a different perspective on the issue if/when you are an employer.
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.
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)
Actually, the NLRB was very specific. The entire point of the meme was to inform companies that their overly broad scial media policies would make a reasonable person believe they could not discuss their salary or working conditions. That's specifically against the law - a law he repeatedly sites in the memo. The easy way around the issue is to include repeated disclaimers that no part of this policy will in any way restrict the employee's rights to discuss their salary or work conditions. But they don't want to point out those rights, for fear their employees would use them. So they whine that the NLRB didn't give them a template for exactly how far they can push the rule and obscure their employee's legal rights.
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 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
...he's the boss's lover, brother, illegitimate son...
billybob? He's probably all three
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
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
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)".
You give them free food and drink in the break room??? Traitor!!!
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.
You give them breaks!?
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
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
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.
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
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?"
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.
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.
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.
If that's your choice, then by all means, do it. However, in that situation, it's YOU choosing not to take part in the disclosure. In the situation in the article, it was the EMPLOYER forcing their will on you, and robbing you of that choice. Completely different situation.