
You have a right to know how much your coworkers are paid - Futurebot
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/04/wage-gap-pay-transparency-discrimination-unions/
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xt00
So the basic premise of the article and this movement is that people assume
that the default is for virtually everybody to be underpaid. So since there is
obviously a Gaussian or poission distribution in salaries, then obviously some
people will be above what "everybody gets paid". So unless the author solved
the somewhat old emotion of ya know jealousy, then this is guaranteed to be a
recipe for disaster for most companies. Especially the high performers would
feel constantly like their peers would be saying under their breath "and he
gets paid so much more for what??".. So yea likely they would be less likely
to want to show even the smallest amount of weakness to those people and would
likely try to work in a more cautious manner.

My thinking is that the problem people are trying to solve is noble but it
turns a creative industry into a trade industry like electricians with various
levels of seniority and levels of advancement.

I think it's better to simply rely upon the glass door type stuff and if you
feel like you are underpaid, change your job. Asking for raises I honestly
think is a bad way to increase your salary.

~~~
crdoconnor
"So the basic premise of the article and this movement is that people assume
that the default is for virtually everybody to be underpaid. So since there is
obviously a Gaussian or poission distribution in salaries, then obviously some
people will be above what "everybody gets paid"."

Except labor/capital share doesn't follow a gaussian distribution within a
company. It's a ratio. It's perfectly plausible (probably likely, in fact)
that salary transparency will increase wages for all employees.

~~~
programmarchy
The parent was not comparing labor vs. capital, but rather labor vs. labor
e.g. the set of all software engineers at a company. It's perfectly reasonable
to expect the salary distribution to fit a bell curve.

And I disagree with your conclusion that this would likely increase wages for
all employees. In the least, it's very likely to penalize high performers by
redistributing their wealth to low performers, so employers can maintain the
appearance of "fairness".

It's equally likely that this would decrease wages for all employees. If the
incentive to perform well is diminished (e.g. "why work harder if you won't be
rewarded?"), then it will lower the bar for quality across the board,
providing less value to employers, ultimately pushing the price (i.e. wage)
downward.

~~~
spoonie

        it's very likely to penalize high performers by redistributing their wealth to low performers
    

Seems to me that the problem here is that company isn't able to convince the
low performers that they are low performing. If the high performers are paid
more due to some objective metric, the low performers should be able to see
their own path to higher performance. If not, then it's the company's problem
for having a pay scale that rewards negotiating skills or nepotism over
objective performance evaluations.

~~~
unholiness
Any attempt to "objectively" measure performance to influence salary will
actively harm company culture. Unless your company is literally an assembly
line, Godhart's law takes over so quickly and your employees are going to
spend their time abusing the metric.

Just paying employees the market rate, while imperfect, is overwhelmingly
preferable.

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drdeadringer
Perhaps a right, but I'd be more comfortable if the data had was a touch
anonymous. Like, no names but perhaps with job title and years of experience
or similar.

~~~
gdulli
Yeah if we're just declaring rights that sound good could I prioritize my
right to privacy in this area instead?

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programmarchy
Say a person X is paid more than person Y in the same role because X's child
has a health issue that requires extra income for X's family to stay afloat.
There was a private agreement between the X and the employer because X needs
the extra money, and X is a valued employee. Then Y raises the issue. The
employer can't afford to pay Y the same as X. Is Y owed some kind of
explanation? How is that explanation given without violating the privacy of X?

~~~
crdoconnor
So in essence you believe that employers keep secrets because they're
terrified that everybody will discover that they're actually kind hearted?

~~~
programmarchy
Nice non sequitur. Rather, the intention of my example is to point out privacy
concerns for employees.

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grok2
I think this only will cause more problems than it will solve (unhappy
employees, stressed managers and ultimately depressed salaries (because
companies will then peg salaries at the least common denominator to avoid
problems) and unmotivated employees (they won't see that doing a good job is
appreciated by a nice pay bump once in a while)).

Maybe an easier approach is to have an external arbiter periodically comb
through employee salaries to check for discrimination?

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MichaelBurge
Next up: They should require freelance workers to disclose their full rate
history, to ensure that greedy freelancers aren't ripping off less-
knowledgeable clients. It's not fair if you charge one client a different rate
than another based on opaque criteria or a reason your lawmaker doesn't
approve of.

~~~
koverstreet
Yes, because the power imbalance between freelancers and their clients is just
as bad as the power imbalance between companies and their employees.

~~~
programmarchy
It could be better, or it could be worse. If the freelancer is skilled and has
a good reputation, then they probably have more leverage. If they're just
starting out, they may have less than a full time employee who has a stable
income.

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gozur88
Only in Iceland.

My pay is between me and my employer. It's none of anyone else's business.

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TheAdamAndChe
I'm seeing a lot of pushback against this in here. Executive compensation
disclosure laws in the US led to massively increasing pay for executives, who
are some of the highest paid people in the company. Seeing how a major problem
in the US is income and wealth inequality, why wouldn't this kind of
legislation lead to the same race to the top for laborers' pay that executive
compensation disclosure laws led to?

~~~
pottersbasilisk
I doubt it. There is asymmetry in roles and value to a company. Id expect it
to lower wages.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
The executive compensation disclosures led to greater compensation because the
top performers had a baseline from which to be paid and thus required higher
wages. At the same time, nobody likes to think they're below average, and thus
demanded at least near-average wages. What makes you think that mechanism
wouldn't lead to increased wages for laborers?

~~~
pottersbasilisk
Because workers are not executives.

Instead the push for 15 dollar min wages has pushed fast food industries to
find ways to replace them.

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apokaladle
Damn straight. Obfuscation only benefits the boss at your expense.

~~~
programmarchy
It also benefits the employees who are getting a larger slice of the pie.
Deserving or not, would said employees have an obligation to disclose their
higher salary to their peers?

~~~
tawayway
How would they know that they have higher salaries?

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kk_cz
Between the right to know how much my coworkers are paid and the right of
privacy I will always prefer the latter.

