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"Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs

nityesh.com

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Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs

#71

Post by bitL »

matz1 wrote: post #57
bitL wrote: post #30

Imagine I am traveling the world while working remotely. Am I going to have a different compensation based on the present location? On my tax domicile location? What if I move to Monaco? If I spend time in some super cheap country, would the company reimburse my flight ticket that might be worth 5-10x the average monthly salary?

That's depends on the negotiation you have with your employer.

I guess the negotiation would be very one-sided - there's no way they would increase one's salary to n x $1M if an employee moved to Monaco (you need to make a permanent 500k EUR deposit in a local bank during your residency and have a tenancy agreement for an apartment where rent doesn't go under 6k/month).

Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs

#72

Post by pavel_lishin »

9HZZRfNlpR wrote: post #42
asdfaoeu wrote: post #17

Salaries are based on market rates not "cost of living". If you want your employer to pay a higher salary either move to another city where they would pay more or find another company. There's not much else you can do that would convince your company otherwise.

Why not just tell you live in another city?

This could constitute tax fraud.

Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs

#73

Post by davemp »

ukoki wrote: post #59
ajuc wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is no moral obligation for employers to pay a wage that's fair, based on the value of the employee work, perhaps above ~subsistence levels. is there moral obligation to do your job well instead of let's say watching youtube and doing bare minimum not to get fired? It's funny how people expect moral behaviour from other people but not from companies made of these people. Somehow it's fine for companies to be j…

> is there moral obligation to do your job well instead of let's say watching youtube and doing bare minimum not to get fired? No You can choose to do well to avoid being fired. You can choose to do well to chase a promotion. You can choose to do well because the work interests you. But you are not morally obligated to do anything, and if your employer is not very good at evaluating your work, then — like a man who b…

Who's morals are in question here?

Both you and GP seem to be talking from an amoral perspective. To many people there is certainly a moral obligation to put in an honest effort and pay fair wages.

Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs

#74

Post by dvtrn »

rich_sasha wrote: post #29
beaunative wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

employment is an actual contract, not just social.

right, but what underpins the usual rules of employment is based on what the society wants. Like democracy - it is literally a contract, written in laws. And yet it is also a social contract.

the usual rules of employment is based on what the society wants.

Until "the board" steps in and says 'no', right? That's been my experience. Proclamations and cheerleading about "we're a meritocracy, we act democratically in this company".

Times get tough (like a Global pandemic coming along), employees ask firm questions like "will the executives taking a pay cut like the rest of us?"

Response: "the board said no"

"We're all in this together"; "The board won't approve it."

"Burnout is real! Take steps to monitor it";"The board won't approve a 4 day work week"

etc. I've been in some VERY heated and passionately argued meetings in the last month as a leader, hearing my cohort leaders giving voice and in some cases giving voice myself to concerns and frustrations coming from a workforce that is growing pretty pessimistic watching how much of the internal corporate cheerleading and messaging in practice is at odds with corporate rhetoric that have manifested during our extended org-wide WFH.

Wonder if anyone else has observed the same.

Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs

#75

Post by PenguinCoder »

OminousWeapons wrote: post #56
9HZZRfNlpR wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just tell you live in another city?

I agree, this seems trivial to solve: get a UPS PMB in a high cost of living area and set up mail forwarding.

Yeah, until they geolocate the IP address you're using to connect to the company VPN.

Oops.

Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs

#76

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

pydry wrote: post #25
rich_sasha wrote: post #5

This, and similar moans, really misses the point. Employment is a social contract, looking for a compromise between two positions: * Employers want to essentially acquire a good (productive employee) for the best quality / price ratio. If a trained monkey could do the job for peanuts, employers would be happy. * Employees, and the society made up of employees, want stability, employment rights etc. as salary work is…

On the one hand lying about your location to an employer seems sketchy. On the other hand COL adjusted pay seems pretty much equally sketchy. Employers trying to adjust salaries based upon COL really isn't much different to printer manufacturers software disabling printers and selling them at a cheaper price. It's an attempt at price differentiation - in the opposite direction.

If your employer required you to move to a location with a higher cost of living, would you not expect to be compensated for that?

i.e. is it only downward adjustments for COL that you object to? and, if so, what's the logic in that (other than pure self-interest)?

Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs

#77

Post by ben_w »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #64
ajuc wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is no moral obligation for employers to pay a wage that's fair, based on the value of the employee work, perhaps above ~subsistence levels. is there moral obligation to do your job well instead of let's say watching youtube and doing bare minimum not to get fired? It's funny how people expect moral behaviour from other people but not from companies made of these people. Somehow it's fine for companies to be j…

> It's funny how people expect moral behaviour from other people but not from companies made of these people. Somehow it's fine for companies to be jerks. We expect different behavior from a beehive than we expect from the bees, don't we?

I’ve never thought about it before, so no, in the absence of your prompt I would have expected a beehive to just be N bees being bees.

Obviously you wouldn’t have suggested this if my expectation was correct, but it would’ve been my guess if I didn’t use meta-reasoning about why you might be giving that example.

Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs

#78

Post by bananaface »

sokoloff wrote: post #58
bananaface wrote: post #53

I think cost-of-living adjustments are mostly a bluff. If you demand more and you're better than someone in an expensive area, they're not going to hire the shittier candidate. They'll see what they can get away with given your apparent leverage, and offer that. If you have multiple offers, they'll bid you up to the budget for your skill level. Where you are is irrelevant (except for legal issues). At least, that's h…

I don't know if I'd call them a bluff or an initial bid, but I agree with your main point that if you can convince a hiring manager that you're the best candidate they can find and represent a value overlay, they're very motivated to find a way to make it happen (often by hiring you at a more senior level than what you were being recruited for). In the end, finding extremely talented developers is still a difficult,…

I call it a bluff because the implication is it's non-negotiable.

One of the reasons I say this is that if people weren't falling for it, they wouldn't tell you they're applying an adjustment at all, because it tells you their actual budget is higher. They'd just give you a lower number and leave it at that. If they go so far as to communicate the amount of your adjustment, they're making a particularly poor strategic move because it tells you exactly how much higher their lower bound really is.

Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs

#79

Post by necrotic_comp »

ponker wrote: post #35
Ekaros wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With remote work employers in SF aren't any more competing with talent pool of SF, but national or global pool. Supply and demand in action. Supply has increased, demand remain stable or lower. Means prices(wages) are going to go down. Ofc, if they want people to come and sit in their SF office they have to pay more. On other hand if they can get replacement for their ex-local resource for remote for cheaper they mig…

Sure, I just think the conversation right now is, "Why would you pay me less if I move from SF to Alabama, I'm the same guy doing the same work." The conversation in the future will be "Why would I hire you in SF and pay you three times what I'm paying in Alabama? You're equivalent guys doing the same work." The concept of the "standard" will shift from the highest-paid locale to the lowest, and "Cost of Living Adjus…

This is why there needs to be teeth to the laws that limit pay inequality within a firm ; if the CEO of the firm can only make X amount the median or mean (whichever is lower) salary of any person who does work for a firm (including contractors!) then we can hopefully push back on this cost of living BS.

Basically, the work is worth something and if we do the work, we should be paid a reasonable amount, regardless of where we sat when we did the work.

Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs

#80

Post by HarryHirsch »

cashewchoo wrote: post #69
ukoki wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is there moral obligation to do your job well instead of let's say watching youtube and doing bare minimum not to get fired? No You can choose to do well to avoid being fired. You can choose to do well to chase a promotion. You can choose to do well because the work interests you. But you are not morally obligated to do anything, and if your employer is not very good at evaluating your work, then — like a man who b…

I think an extremely large percentage of America would disagree with you, though. The puritan work ethic is absolutely the backbone of society for a lot of americans.

Only for the employee, though, never for the employer. When the employee doesn't work he's a slacking , when the employer overworks the employees or pays poorly it's "go find another job". It's religion for the masses, capitalism for the rich.
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