

College considers basing president’s salary off that of cleaning staff - voidlogic
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2014/02/20/st-marys-college-considers-basing-presidents-salary-off-that-of-cleaning-staff/

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pserwylo
This sounds like a discussion of pirates I heard on the radio the other
morning. It was about how pirates of a few hundred years ago had a very good
idea of democracy, and how to ensure that the captain didn't become too far
removed from the crew (though like all such systems, it was far from perfect).

It went something like this:

Captains get elected, and they get elected on cycles. At any point, if people
are dissatisfied with the captain, they can overthrow them and reelect a new
one (though not during chases or battles).

The bit that rings home with this article though, is that the captain
generally had to eat with the crew members. If any one of the crew members
decided they liked the captains meal better then theirs, the captain would
have to swap.

Apparently, this helped to ensure some humbleness in the captain. Even though
they called the shots, they were not this mystical being that nobody saw,
interacted with, or felt out of touch with.

I think the tying of the presidents salary to that of his cleaners is a good
example of this. He still gets to be the boss man, but can do it without being
too far removed from the rest of the population of workers.

~~~
icebraining
The economist Peter Leeson did a whole book around that, called _The Invisible
Hook_ [1]. I haven't read it, but the Econtalk podcast with the author[2] was
interesting.

That said, I don't think this measure will be nearly as successful as the
pirates'. I'd rather see the executive body be elected by the workers, as in
the Mondragon corporation[3].

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisible_Hook](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisible_Hook)

[2]
[http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/05/leeson_on_pirat.htm...](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/05/leeson_on_pirat.html)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Cooperative_Corporat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Cooperative_Corporation)

~~~
pserwylo
Well there you go. Now that you've mentioned The Invisible Hook, it occurs to
me that this is what they were talking about on the radio. Thanks for the
link.

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thejteam
Funny, I never thought I would see my alma mater on the front page of Hacker
News.

A few things about the current situation. For various reasons, including
mistakes made by the last president, the college was severely under-enrolled
in this years freshman class. This is the cause of the major financial
problems the college is facing and caused the previous president to ask the
Board of Trustees not to renew his contract. The current president is an
interim president and the college is currently conducting a search for a
permanent replacement.

From what I have heard the current search is not going well. They are having a
heard time finding suitable candidates that want to face the challenges the
college is currently facing, which includes an underpaid faculty. I can't help
but think that this will make it even harder to recruit a suitable candidate.
I know several of the professors involved with this (I still live near the
campus) and I know their hearts are in the right place and they want what is
best for the college. I also know many of them disdain administrators and
people with money. Especially people with money.

I will be following this with interest to see how this plays out.

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kryptiskt
The thing that would make sense would be to base it off the academic staff's
salaries. But I suppose the idea of a college with decent working conditions
for the faculty would be too utopian.

~~~
just2n
Or perhaps the average salary of non-administrative and non-exec workers.

And 10x seems like an arbitrary (and large) multiplier. What justifies it?
What does the president of a University do that adds that much value to a
University? I remember ours made over $300k and all he did was go to parties
thrown by wealthy Alums, give public speeches, and otherwise be a politician
at council meetings.

By comparison, entry level IT there was $30k, "programming" was $40-50k, and
senior in either was capped at $55k essentially. And IIRC, the professor
salaries were similarly pathetic. I never understood how a public University
justifies paying an administrator (something like a glorified answering
machine that can make Excel spreadsheets) double what it pays someone who
builds and maintains the infrastructure the school needs to function.
Especially when the latter often must wear 10+ hats and train themselves on
their own time just so they can do the job adequately.

~~~
WalterBright
> What does the president of a University do that adds that much value to a
> University?

He's the chief fundraiser for it, and head salesman.

~~~
just2n
For a small arm of a large federated public University?

The vast majority of income to the University was from public funding,
tuition, and sales on campus. He was never involved in working with state
legislation to try to get us more funding -- that happened at a higher level
in the University system. The large independent contributions happen
regardless, and had mostly happened before his time (you know, buying a new
building for the University and having it named after you).

The President was so far divorced from students that almost nobody could
actually recognize him. He wasn't the reason anyone attended the school. Every
alum I know has never heard of him outside of public speaking engagements.
Every faculty member and staff member on campus I talked to (and I worked
there for 3 years, it was a small University) had almost 0 interaction with
him.

How is he fundraising, and who is he selling what to?

I saw absolutely 0 justification that he was earning the salary of 1 sanitary
worker, let alone 5x the highest amount they paid any skilled worker on
campus.

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scotty79
Next up:

Lowest paid employees promptly fired. Those next in line will take up the
responsibilities of fired ones.

~~~
bbosh
Or just contract the work out.

~~~
curiouscats
Firing and contracting out are the type of actions someone at many companies
would take faced with equity requirements. The type of organizations that
actually put equity requirements in place by choice are not going to do those
things (any sensible auditor would not allow "contractors" to fake follow the
rules).

When rules on equity are put in place for political reasons (say to pretend
bailout for too-big-to-fail banking executives) then all sorts of not actually
following the rules will be done. Those organizations normally have no
interest in equity they are run by kleptocrats and the kleptocrats will just
do things you suggest and act like those things matter (pretend that if the
job is done by a contractor that means the job doesn't count...).

I don't actually think 10 times the lowest pay makes much sense. But the
choice of this of being run by the kleptocrats in control of most treasuries
today I would accept this 10 times rule. It isn't that I think it is a good
rule, I just feel it would be less horrible than the kleptocracy mentality in
place now.

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madsushi
Ben & Jerry's used to have a similar policy, except it was "no more than 5x".
Lasted until they picked up a CEO that wanted more than $150k/yr.

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aaron695
Doesn't really make sense to me, what do cleaners have to do with the
president?

Shouldn't you just be paying market value.

Lets say you have a really good president, why wouldn't they just leave to a
higher paying position somewhere else?

~~~
dalai
It is not about basing his salary on that of the cleaners. It is about having
a limit on the range of salaries in the organization and the cleaners happen
to have the lowest there. The idea is that the extra profits should be shared
by all the employees and not collected by the top executives.

As to why they wouldn't just leave, well let them. You could hire better
faculty members and you will have a sparkly clean university that can attract
better students. Your research/teaching statistics go up and you can pick more
funding. At some point other universities will follow your example and
administrator salaries will normalize.

Not going to happen though .... more likely they will outsource the cleaning
so that the president can earn 10x the salary of the IT stuff. Then they will
probably outsource IT as well ...

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loup-vaillant
At the last French presidential elections, one candidate proposed a similar
measure at a national level:

First, no one shall earn more than 20 times the median revenue. Everything
above it is taxed 100%.

Second, no salary shall be more than 20 times the revenue of the lowest paid
people in the same company.

Of course, he didn't get elected.

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walshemj
cue outsourcing all the low wage jobs to subcontractors in 3...2...1

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paulhauggis
This is a good way to get a mediocre president. If I'm the best at what I do,
I'm going to go where I am valued the most (and it is reflected in my
paycheck).

~~~
jmatthew3
Alternatively, the cleaning staff will become very well paid. Unfortunately,
something like this is very specific, so it is likely that, while the cleaning
staff will get a bump in pay, any increases in cost will be offset by
decreases elsewhere. Like to food staff. Or professors. Or to scholarships.

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__pThrow
Sounds like a terrific way to show leadership.

~~~
bgilroy26
It's a terrific institution. I'm really glad St. Mary's exists.

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awnird
Now do this for the coaches.

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mason55
Generally the highly paid coaches are at schools where the athletic
departments fund themselves (Texas, Ohio State, etc.)

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yetanotherphd
So stupid.

What has the salary of the president got to do with the salary of the
cleaners? It is only coincidence that the cleaners are employees on the books.
What about the people who make the textbooks they read, or the iPhones they
use?

Inequality is important, but it is a society-wide issue. Reducing inequality
_within a company_ is a meaningless goal.

There is already a very effective way of reducing inequality, which has the
advantage of being completely even handed. It's called income tax.

Controlling costs is also good in itself, but that is a separate issue.
Running an entire university is a position of great importance, and the
salaries mentioned seem in line with this level of responsibility. (Not that
people deserve more money because they have more responsibility. The point is
that these position require the best people, who will demand higher salaries).

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squintychino
In other news - there is a new job opening at St. Marys...

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stefan_kendall
Another income inequality article. Get off hacker news and stay off.

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eropple
Why?

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saraid216
Because elitism is harder to maintain if people protest inequality?

~~~
eropple
Being combative and sneering about people worse off from him is
stefan_kendall's schtick (both here and on Twitter), so I was sort of hoping
to actually get an answer.

Not _expecting_ to, but hoping.

