More Than 60% of Tech Workers Feel They're Underpaid (cnbc.com)

gollum123 writes: Tech workers are the envy of labor market -- they earn some of the highest starting salaries and often command top-notch benefits. But money doesn't always buy satisfaction. Entrepreneur reports that tech workers in major American cities earn an average of $135,000 and yet, a survey of 6,000 tech workers conducted by workplace app Blind and reported by Quartz found that over 60 percent feel they aren't being paid enough. The survey also breaks down how tech workers feel about their pay by company. The five tech companies with the highest percentage of employees who felt they were underpaid shared one important characteristic: They were all founded before 1998. Cisco, Intel, Expedia, VMware and Microsoft employees were the most likely to say that they did not make enough money. Cisco had the highest percentage of dissatisfied employees, with 80 percent telling Blind that they did not feel adequately compensated. Facebook employees, on the other hand, were the most like to say that they are overpaid, with 13.8 percent saying that they felt their employer was overly generous.

Comments

60% of Tech Workers wfeel

[oldgraybeard]

they are underpaid and would like to get paid more. I am shocked!!!

That it is not 100%

Just my 2 cents ;)

Re:60% of Tech Workers wfeel

[Austerity Empowers]

How much is workers being paid over the national median, but having to live in extremely expensive, high cost locations such that a six figure salary actually doesn't mean much.

Re:60% of Tech Workers wfeel

[garcia]

I worked in a unionized environment for 10 years; I make 6x as much as I did then.

My biggest issue with unions, aside from their political lobbying and, previously, mandate I pay them a percentage of my salary to give me what they consider to be adequate representation is that should, for some reason, make the same as or less than the amount my coworker does when they are less educated, less talented, less able, and less efficient just because they've been there longer than I have.

This is what comes to mind when someone says union to me.

Re:60% of Tech Workers wfeel

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to drive tow trucks in an inner city. Then I was an auto mechanic. At work I've been shot at, assaulted, crushed, cut, and burned. My hands and arms are covered in scars and there's still some metal in there.

Now I sit in a climate controlled cubicle on an ergonomic chair and make ten times as much money.

Not that I'd turn down a raise, but overpaid/underpaid are relative terms. The times I feel underpaid, I have to remind myself of the days working on tractor trailers in the summer heat of the deep south.

Re:60% of Tech Workers wfeel

[bluefoxlucid]

Generally, IT job positions have pay grades, and you get a range inside there. That's how it works in government positions.

Unionized workers can negotiate salaries however, including by putting those positions into a hierarchy of pay grades and leaving it up to the individual to negotiate within that range. Much of the time, the workers don't know all the details of negotiating on their own, so the union sends experts to handle that. Unions are more-organized than the average worker and tend to have more control over the bargaining process in the same way a lawyer has more control over a class-action lawsuit.

People are greedy. News at 11

[sjbe]

Entrepreneur reports that tech workers in major American cities earn an average of $135,000 and yet, a survey of 6,000 tech workers conducted by workplace app Blind and reported by Quartz found that over 60 percent feel they aren't being paid enough.

I think this is the Dunning Kruger effect in all it's glory. Tech workers are routinely stricken by it, especially here on slashdot.

Productivity has doubled in 40 years

[rsilvergun]

but wages declined 12-14%. _Everybody_ is underpaid except the ruling class. We gave up our Unions and with them collective bargaining. Rather than fix a little minor corruption we threw baby out with bath water and we're paying the price.

Re:Productivity has doubled in 40 years

[locopuyo]

Productivity of what? You're trying to link a bunch of vague, unsourced statistics for some sort of class warfare propaganda. Are you trying to say quality of life has decreased? Because I would say the opposite. Quality of life has more than doubled. Everything is safer, cheaper, and just better compared to 40 years ago. Internet, cell phones, tvs, transportation is much safer and more comfortable. For the average person life 40 years ago is crap in comparison with today.

By the hour, the wages are not as high.

[darth_borehd]

If I calculate the amount of time I actually work rather than look at my yearly salary, I am making less than a lot of non-technical unskilled labor jobs.

Putting in 50-80 hours a week degrades your quality of life and takes much more valuable time away from from family, but cutting down to only 40 hours a week degrades your productivity and puts you on a track to being fired. Tech workers also take less vacation too.

Because IT is a cost center at most companies, the workers are under more pressure from management to prove themselves essential to the bottom line.

Half of them are below average

[goombah99]

I would think that it would be normal for 50% of people to be paid less than the median salary for any given set of identical positions. so 60% of them feeling underpaid yet having the same job description as their peers who are paid more is lcose to what you might expect.

When Jeff Bezos walks into a bar

[DalM]

... "on average" every one in the bar is a billionaire.

(see "earn an average of $135,000" for more bad statistics.)

Unions savaged industry

[alternative_right]

Unions made American industry unstable with strikes and transferred money to organized crime. Costs rose and quality plummeted, so industry outsourced.

If the workers had simply pooled resources to buy voting shares in their company, they would have come out much farther ahead.

The real reason that wages are so low is that there are too many people here with more coming each day. Law of supply and demand, remember?

Re:Unions savaged industry

[Anubis350]

You assume a zero sum economy, it doesnt work that way, more people also means more spending, more money flowing, a bigger economy. Capitalism relies on the velocity of money, and that means more people spending money, not concentrations at the top as we do see (and which we wouldn't if your premise was correct, the money simply wouldnt be there, the problem isn't that employment or money has moved out of the country, it's that the wage disparity between the top and the bottom has become so huge because of stagnant wages that money isn't moving in the way it really needs to to grow the economy for anyone but the very wealthy).

Industry didn't outsource because costs were too high alone, they did it because organized labor's power declined and they were able to get favorable laws passed to allow outsourcing, consolidation, and stashing money overseas to be much much easier.

tl;dr you're wrong and your randian fantasy's about how organized labor and immigration destroyed livelihoods is wrong too and you should feel bad.

I think this is the core of it

[alternative_right]

"Underpaid" can mean a few things including "I'm not paid enough for the shit I have to put up with."

IT requires seeing some of the worst of humanity, working long hours, and facing constant competition from management which just wants to cut IT costs.

Maybe a solution is to find other ways to cut IT costs, like automating some of these mindless tasks...

Re:People are greedy. News at 11

[Luthair]

Actually, I should also say this is why most tech workers believe they are underpaid as they know of people in silicon valley earning twice or more their salary.

No Shit, Sherlock

[tsqr]

Cisco, Intel, Expedia, VMware and Microsoft employees were the most likely to say that they did not make enough money.

No kidding? Cisco, Intel, and VMWARE are located in Silicon Valley, where cost of living is astronomical. Expedia and Microsoft are in Bellevue, WA and Redmond, Wa, where the median cost of a home hovers around $900K.Toss in excessive unpaid overtime, and a person would be crazy not to consider themselves underpaid.

What's the goal of the union?

[goombah99]

The goals of that IT workers union are something we all can agree on:

OVERVIEW
This document investigates the needs of Information Technology workers and the likely parameters of an IT Workers Union.
GOALS
1. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit
2. Sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.

Historically the goals of Unions have not always been about pay. the first Trade Unions (beyond mere guilds) in the USA were the Train Worker's union. Their the goals were about quality of life and longevity of careers. Their promise to the bussinesses was that in return they would be able to develop a more professional class of tranin worker and decrease expensive accidents. This actually did work out pretty well. Train workers were scheduled so they would return home every couple weeks rather than having to flop in railroad owned hotel-bars. The bars in the company owned flop houses were closed down. Merit based pay was insituted. And train wrecks did decrease and on-time schedules got better. It was only later that the collective bargaining began to focus on having worker's capture a larger slice of the profits. But even then Unions recognize that growing the pie was as important to wages as the slice of the pie they got. However like all things some weird dynamics set in, in which collective bargaining at Ford would set the wage rate at GM too. All ford cared about was making sure any price rise they incurred was felt by GM too and vica versa. Pass it along to the consumer. So Unions and management became less focused on keeping the company competitive as they could both pass along the costs. They paid dearly when foreign imports ate their lunch. As a results Unions got a bad name.

But the idea that a union can foster career development that benefits an industry as opposed to treating workers as disposable cattle is still valid.

However Millenials dont' seem to subscribe to the idea of career longevity. So Unions aren't going to happen in the IT industry.

Re: What's the goal of the union?

[bluefoxlucid]

Individual workers don't have bargaining power because they can't control the entirety of the bargaining unit. Your employer can replace you with an individual with better terms. Unions bargain a contract which covers all workers of a certain class: if the employer hires someone new, that worker is also covered by the bargaining contract.

In other words: individual bargaining--YOU--carries zero weight because we can hire someone else and fire you, negotiating lower salary and benefits with your replacement. Collective bargaining carries total weight because we can fire you and replace you with someone who gets similar salary. In an IT union, salaries would likely be more-flexible, and locked into pay grades: we can't replace an $80k worker with a $60k worker because the position is $75k-$85k. The union, however, also negotiates a just-cause replacement, so they can't simply replace you with someone cheaper anyway.

Re:May or may not be common

[bluefoxlucid]

That's why we need a comp time policy at the Federal level for salaried workers. Nothing extreme--you get your hourly rate (not time-and-a-half) paid out each quarter at request or they give it to you as additional time off later--since states can put in stronger policies.

Re:People are greedy. News at 11

[tlhIngan]

Actually, I should also say this is why most tech workers believe they are underpaid as they know of people in silicon valley earning twice or more their salary.

I think if you ask anyone, they'd think they're being underpaid. Not just tech people, but anyone. From the small business owner who barely makes minimum wage (running a business is hard work), to the janitors who break their backs nightly mopping floors to the CEOs who always believe they need more.

I don't think there's anyone who would answer that they make enough money right now.

How do you buy stock

[rsilvergun]

without money

And what happens when you buy stock in a company like General Motors and they fold the legal entity rendering the stock worthless? Or how about Hostess where they sold the brand and machinery so they could raid the pension fund and bust what was left of the Union?

Workers can't absorb the losses that ruling class have. And they can't buy off politicians the same way to get bail outs. The working class needs to organize or they lose. That's exactly what's happening now and what every single economist (who doesn't work for a right wing think tank) says is the cause of declining wages.

As for organized crime, would you shut down our banking system because sometimes somebody robs a bank? Or would you throw the bank robber in jail? The whole organized crime thing is a red herring to distract from the points I made above.