As was pointed out in another thread about Facebook, and I'm sure this is also true for Google / Alphabet, a lot of the lower-paid jobs are done by contractors, temps, etc - all off of Alphabet's employee / pay numbers.
Alphabet's Median Pay Nears $200k
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Re: Alphabet's Median Pay Nears $200k
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
gosh what the tech industry could accomplish with a union...the excuse I always hear is "but we have it so well! why do we need to organize?!". Organize for the people that clean your office space, organize for marginalized peoples, organize to make the world a better place, not just your industry. Think what would happen if AWS was without site reliability for 72 hours.
Oh not this deceased equine again. Is /r/sysadmin leaking? >gosh what the tech industry could accomplish with a union Much less than it does now. I've had odd jobs at union places. I know career workers in union-dominated industries. We don't want it within 10 miles of tech. A fun thought experiment I ask people to do that usually puts this one to bed: Imagine the most useless, technically incompetent, lazy sack of f…
>Imagine the most useless, technically incompetent, lazy sack of flesh that you were unfortunate enough to share the title of "engineer" with(and office space too). In a union, they'd be very nearly impossible to fire, and based on tenure would probably make more than most of their peers.
I worked 4 years in a Canadian Auto Workers unionized plant. This is not my experience, whatsoever.
If you do your job, you can't be fired because you rub your manager the wrong way (imagine that?). If you don't, there's a process to fire employees. A union is just that: a union of people. If you're a cancerous employee, the union doesn't want to work with you either.
Re: Alphabet's Median Pay Nears $200k
#33Seems really low. Imagine if they unionized!
gosh what the tech industry could accomplish with a union...the excuse I always hear is "but we have it so well! why do we need to organize?!". Organize for the people that clean your office space, organize for marginalized peoples, organize to make the world a better place, not just your industry. Think what would happen if AWS was without site reliability for 72 hours.
Our engineeers had the opportunity to unionize.
We had a fantastic team and boss. Everyone wanted us to be non-union.
Then... The union factory people demanded we joined the union.
We became a heated center of debate despite 0 of us wanting to join the union.
We survived, and I get paid for lunches!(they dont)
Re: Alphabet's Median Pay Nears $200k
#34Is this salary, or total comp? From the article ".. a median pay package.. ", so that's not clear to me. What is the original source of the info?
When I was at Google, GSU (stock grants) and bonuses typically added anywhere from 25% to 60% to your salary. That depended on level, years of vesting, etc.
Re: Alphabet's Median Pay Nears $200k
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh not this deceased equine again. Is /r/sysadmin leaking? >gosh what the tech industry could accomplish with a union Much less than it does now. I've had odd jobs at union places. I know career workers in union-dominated industries. We don't want it within 10 miles of tech. A fun thought experiment I ask people to do that usually puts this one to bed: Imagine the most useless, technically incompetent, lazy sack of f…
Why doesnt that happen enough in current unionizes jobs ?
This does happen in current union jobs.
There is a reason for outsourcing, and its not just cost.
Re: Alphabet's Median Pay Nears $200k
#36Seems really low. Imagine if they unionized!
gosh what the tech industry could accomplish with a union...the excuse I always hear is "but we have it so well! why do we need to organize?!". Organize for the people that clean your office space, organize for marginalized peoples, organize to make the world a better place, not just your industry. Think what would happen if AWS was without site reliability for 72 hours.
>organize to make the world a better place
I'm terrified of labor organization specifically because of vague and ill-defined goals. Without a well defined purpose, the goal of an organization turns to self-perpetuation, and can do so at the expense of members.
Of the reasons to organize, the most convincing to me is an ethical opposition to abusing the time, privacy, and mental state of users who have no practical option but to trust the tools we build.
Get a critical mass to build and commit to specific and articulate goals. On screen and upfront. Then, and only then, will I entertain the idea of a union to implement it.
Re: Alphabet's Median Pay Nears $200k
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, as with the Facebook news that their median is $240k ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16955393 ), it could well be the case that Alphabet's lower paid staff are mostly contractors who wouldn't be counted in this metric.
Everyone seems to report either median or average, both of which leave out a lot of interesting information. If people simply reported both values, it would go a long way to painting a more accurate picture.
I was just thinking about this. Ideally, the median and mean salaries should account for added value but not vary so much as to make inequality unbearable. Having CEOs paid 100 or 200 or even 1000 times more than other employees is bad for everyone in the long run. It leads to so much inequality that people end up tearing each other appart, looking for culprits (immigrants, strangers, neighbouring countries, etc). Having a CEO paid more than others is fine as long as everyone can benefit from the added value, not just a few.
Re: Alphabet's Median Pay Nears $200k
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would agree in regards to SEC filings, but I'm not sure this comes from an SEC filing? Also, do you have to state median pay in such a filing?
I don't think companies are required to and this statement from the WSj article: >the fourth-highest pay among the hundreds of companies in the S&P 500 index that have disclosed those figures. seems to imply that it is not.
This article seems to suggest it's mandatory for public companies:
>As Congress chips away at bank regulations established by the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, another part of the measure is exposing the extreme income inequality between bosses and their workers.
>The law requires publicly traded companies to calculate the ratio of their chief executive officer’s compensation to the median pay of the companies’ employees. After a series of delays, firms are finally disclosing their pay ratios in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. [0]
[0] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ceo-pay-disclosure_us_5...
Re: Alphabet's Median Pay Nears $200k
#39Seems really low. Imagine if they unionized!
As someone living/working outside of the US, I'm not sure if this post is a joke. Is a median of $200k actually low?
Re: Alphabet's Median Pay Nears $200k
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazon's medium pay is $28,446. But they also employ nearly 500,000 people. The linked article also has salaries for other tech companies. https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazons-typical-worker-is-in-a-...
Reporting and pushing median pay now is smart for a company like Amazon. When you have a Democratic Congress, $15/hr minimum wage is coming. Many of the grunts will be getting a big raise, which will increase that median significantly in a few years.
These companies are reporting it now because they don't have a choice, it's a federal law that most large public companies have to report median pay and CEO pay.