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Worker-owned businesses: 'We get paid the same regardless of role'

theguardian.com

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Re: Worker-owned businesses: 'We get paid the same regardless of role'

#71

Post by fancyfish »

maksimum wrote: post #39
fancyfish wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equal payment is definitely not the norm for co-ops worldwide. Workers realize they should be paid for their contribution. For example at Mondragón, a network of cooperatives in Spain which employs 75,000 people, workers established a scheme that distributes profits in line with contributions. The difference between this co-op and other businesses is that workers decided to collectively absorb the impact of the Reces…

> make a more sensible amount which still attracts and sustains the best talent in the enterprise. Who should be in charge of how 'sensible' is defined? And how can you argue that it attracts the best talent? Most people outside Spain probably have never heard of Mondragón, but they've almost certainly heard of Google, Facebook, Amazon, AliBaba or Baidu.

The workers decide the pay scale. As long as they're satisfied with the performance of the company then there is no need to push for greater and greater pay to the CEO. If they are not attracting talent, they raise the pay scale just as a normal publicly owned company.

I agree that those tech companies have greater name recognition.

Re: Worker-owned businesses: 'We get paid the same regardless of role'

#72

Post by gaius »

muro wrote: post #6
golergka wrote: post #3

> We all get paid the same hourly rate regardless of the roles we do. Good luck retaining any skilled professionals then. One of the most repulsing stories that I got from Soviet Union from my grandparents was about excellent engineers being on the same pay scale with manual labour workers. No matter how much do you put into your skills, the system had standard pay scale that you couldn't break out from. I'm happy th…

It's a guardian article :)

The Graun comprises writers with double-barrelled names earning 6-figures, and unpaid interns. It’s headquarters are offshore in a tax haven. Draw your own conclusions.

Re: Worker-owned businesses: 'We get paid the same regardless of role'

#73

Post by golergka »

balance_factor wrote: post #20
golergka wrote: post #3

> We all get paid the same hourly rate regardless of the roles we do. Good luck retaining any skilled professionals then. One of the most repulsing stories that I got from Soviet Union from my grandparents was about excellent engineers being on the same pay scale with manual labour workers. No matter how much do you put into your skills, the system had standard pay scale that you couldn't break out from. I'm happy th…

> skills and professionalism can be valued by the free market by people competing for them; why, despite pure populism for the lowest common denominator, someone wants to return to something like this, is completely beyond me. The real determination of where the money goes is by the owners of the business. If one looks over the Forbes 400 richest list, we can see the heirs who drain off so much profit each year from…

> when the money is being sent off to the heirs who do no work?

Do you want to use your resources to help your children thrive? If so, then you've got to be OK when extremely rich to exactly that. It might not seem "fair" when you asses heirs as individuals, as if they appeared out of thin air - but they didn't. The original founder decided to pass on his wealth to his children, as most of us would.

Re: Worker-owned businesses: 'We get paid the same regardless of role'

#74

Post by golergka »

fancyfish wrote: post #23
golergka wrote: post #3

> We all get paid the same hourly rate regardless of the roles we do. Good luck retaining any skilled professionals then. One of the most repulsing stories that I got from Soviet Union from my grandparents was about excellent engineers being on the same pay scale with manual labour workers. No matter how much do you put into your skills, the system had standard pay scale that you couldn't break out from. I'm happy th…

Equal payment is definitely not the norm for co-ops worldwide. Workers realize they should be paid for their contribution. For example at Mondragón, a network of cooperatives in Spain which employs 75,000 people, workers established a scheme that distributes profits in line with contributions. The difference between this co-op and other businesses is that workers decided to collectively absorb the impact of the Reces…

> What you will see is that, for example, instead of top managers of a co-op making hundreds or thousands more than the median employee as in a public corporation, they make a more sensible amount which still attracts and sustains the best talent in the enterprise.

And why, do you think, shareholders don't pursue that strategy? They're giving their own money to CEOs - are they doing it just because they're feeling charitable?

In other words, your argument supposes that a LOT of individual actors, independently, pursue a strategy (overpaying execs) that isn't optimal, and you don't even bother with an explanation as to why does it happen. This logical fallacy happens all the time when exec compensation is discussed, and it really bothers me that everyone just assumes that shareholders and board of directors of so many different companies are just plain stupid.

Re: Worker-owned businesses: 'We get paid the same regardless of role'

#75

Post by dang »

notyourday wrote: post #58
dang wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shallow dismissal. It makes a grandiose claim without support. More importantly, it doesn't teach us anything. An example or two could have rectified that.

Do I need to provide an example that water is wet? But ok, just for you: Largest scale: USSR North Korea Cuba Recent entry: Venezuela Recent entry: South Africa Smaller: https://www.economist.com/news/business/21589469-collapse-sp... Even smaller: https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/gvkqnm/marxist-vegan...

Maybe an example or two wouldn't have rectified it. Would you please read the site guidelines and abide by them when commenting here?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Worker-owned businesses: 'We get paid the same regardless of role'

#76

Post by rayiner »

icebraining wrote: post #65
gremlinsinc wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah fuck that... I'm a developer because I'm an introvert, and overweight and want to sit on my ass and NOT talk to anyone all day... anyone who'd rather stand on their feet and do mindless drudgery because they can is insane... My idea of the perfect worker co-op is where cashiers/programmers earn the same but that 'same' is above market value for the top level employee... so say devs go for 100k, cashiers also get…

Since there's no CEO/board/etc demanding 10 million/yr+ each then there's plenty to split. Not really; the thing with the rich is that there aren't that many of them. Take the top 1% - their average income (including the people making billions) is $1.15M. Let's redistribute $1.1M of those. ($1.1M * (1% of population)) / population = 1% of $1.1M = $11k. So each person only gets $11k extra.

The top 1% earn 20% of all income. If you got rid of them, everyone could get a 20% raise. E.g. cashier goes from $30,000 to $36,000. Much less to split than people assume.

Re: Worker-owned businesses: 'We get paid the same regardless of role'

#77

Post by rayiner »

wolco wrote: post #67
wyager wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I didn’t get paid more to do programming than to do a mindless low-effort job like cashiering, I would absolutely switch to being a cashier and use my mental energy on my own time for my own goals. Salaries already price in the “interestingness” of jobs.

I would continue to program and stop worrying about the sprints, timelines and company goals.

Presumably, you could still be fired.

Re: Worker-owned businesses: 'We get paid the same regardless of role'

#78

Post by dctoedt »

rayiner wrote: post #76
icebraining wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since there's no CEO/board/etc demanding 10 million/yr+ each then there's plenty to split. Not really; the thing with the rich is that there aren't that many of them. Take the top 1% - their average income (including the people making billions) is $1.15M. Let's redistribute $1.1M of those. ($1.1M * (1% of population)) / population = 1% of $1.1M = $11k. So each person only gets $11k extra.

The top 1% earn 20% of all income. If you got rid of them, everyone could get a 20% raise. E.g. cashier goes from $30,000 to $36,000. Much less to split than people assume.

> everyone could get a 20% raise

So even the people in the 90th- to 99th percentiles would get a 20% raise?

Re: Worker-owned businesses: 'We get paid the same regardless of role'

#79

Post by dragonwriter »

rayiner wrote: post #76
icebraining wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since there's no CEO/board/etc demanding 10 million/yr+ each then there's plenty to split. Not really; the thing with the rich is that there aren't that many of them. Take the top 1% - their average income (including the people making billions) is $1.15M. Let's redistribute $1.1M of those. ($1.1M * (1% of population)) / population = 1% of $1.1M = $11k. So each person only gets $11k extra.

The top 1% earn 20% of all income. If you got rid of them, everyone could get a 20% raise. E.g. cashier goes from $30,000 to $36,000. Much less to split than people assume.

> The top 1% earn 20% of all income. If you got rid of them, everyone could get a 20% raise.

No, that's clearly wrong. If the top 1% get 20% of the income, redistributing their income to everyone else would give everyone else a 25% raise.

20% of 100 is 25% of 80.

Re: Worker-owned businesses: 'We get paid the same regardless of role'

#80

Post by rayiner »

dragonwriter wrote: post #79
rayiner wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The top 1% earn 20% of all income. If you got rid of them, everyone could get a 20% raise. E.g. cashier goes from $30,000 to $36,000. Much less to split than people assume.

> The top 1% earn 20% of all income. If you got rid of them, everyone could get a 20% raise. No, that's clearly wrong. If the top 1% get 20% of the income, redistributing their income to everyone else would give everyone else a 25% raise. 20% of 100 is 25% of 80.

You are, of course, correct.
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