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"Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs

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

#271

Post by TeMPOraL »

x87678r wrote: post #189
jasonjayr wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then companies should have no problems whatsoever with Unions? I mean, if a group of employees want to get together to amplify their negotiating power, then they should not stop that?

I'd think the opposite. When I'm physically with people I can form groups, picket offices, go on strike. If I'm a remote worker I'm much more easily replaced and there isn't much I can do about it.

I wonder if and when we'll see remote unions appearing. Forming a group and going on strike is easy - perhaps easier - in a remote setting. Picketing offices could be done by overloading the company VPN, and DDoSing the company Exchange server would be the equivalent of a harder "picketing inside the plant, preventing work" strike.

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

#272

Post by kingaillas »

forest_dweller wrote: post #95
rwmj wrote: post #36

Pay is a power relationship. No one is asking company directors to take a pay cut based on cost of living calculations, because company directors have power over their companies. Similarly cleaners are paid peanuts even if they have to live/commute to high cost of living cities to do the job, because cleaners have no power in the relationship. This is also why workers who unionise can be paid more - the union has pow…

No it isn't about power. Labour is a market and is governed by the laws of supply and demand (typically). A cleaner gets paid less because it is unskilled work and almost any able bodied person can be a cleaner. Same someone that stacks shelves in a super market. The same happens in our industry. VB.NET developers aren't in demand, the contract rates are sometimes £200-300 a day less than a React JS / C# .NET Core de…

>Higher demand pushes up the price of labour.

True... and higher supply pushes down the price of labour.

Software developers like to think they are some uniquely skilled niche, currently benefiting from the laws of economics.

If remote work REALLY takes off, the supply increases by whatever the rest of the world can contribute. It isn't like manufacturing where remote work isn't possible.

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

#273

Post by ethanbond »

mgh2 wrote: post #264
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #112

> You should expect "equal pay for equal work" at your new remote job So naive. In an ideal, utopian world? Maybe it would work this way. Maybe. In reality, your compensation is a function of your negotiating power. Some people, in fact, manage to get the same pay even when working remote, because they're "highly employable". Others don't. And let me add: I almost agree that remote work shouldn't necessarily command…

It is funny how tech employees complain about this when it hits them personally, while employers have been discriminating for eternity. That clause at the bottom of a job page: "no discrimination based on citizenship, origin, etc..."? Just corporate/legal mumbo jumbo. This is how it feels for the non-elite, non-American. In a weird way, the pandemic is leveling the playing field. Democratize opportunities, increase c…

The pandemic is not at all leveling the playing field except maybe between the elite of one country and the elite of another.

The non-elites everywhere are getting hosed.

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

#274

Post by a_imho »

zepto wrote: post #249
a_imho wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

s/remote/female/g Or really, use any other marginalized group with limited negotiation power and see how your comment turns out. Only difference is remote is not protected class, but that is simply an implementation detail. Everybody argues this issue from the POV of their very own salary and it is understandable. It is fair to say you think you are at the good end of the deal and you like it there. But the moral arg…

Except remote/female is not interchangeable. Remote = lower costs. Female ≠ lower costs. I’m not arguing against equal pay for equal work. I’m arguing that it’s a bad analogy to compare being remote with being female.

If you are not arguing against equal pay for equal work Remote = lower costs does not hold.

It also depends on what you think about wage gaps and why do we need equal employment laws in the first place?

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

#275

Post by KittenInABox »

bumby wrote: post #261
KittenInABox wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can but they don't always. Ascribing all unions to the flaws of the most culpable ones is something we don't do for corporations or even governments, and if we did do this we wouldn't get anywhere as a society. People used to beat each other physically over their votes in the village square, but this doesn't mean democracy is culpable for violence.

You're right that it's a broad generalization, but I would disagree that a lot of the same rhetoric isn't applied to corporations or governments. I should have been more specific to say 'unions with bad reputations are often culpable for those stereotypes'

I will be honest I've never seen an across the board "but that's a corporation, we don't want anything to do with that" to corporations the way that's done with unions at least on HN. No one's languishing a " is a corporation? I don't know, look at nestle and its human rights abuses. I don't think we should support ".

FWIW I don't think unions are a silver bullet. I'm just pointing out that if you look at it from a neutral/uninvested party the bias is weird.

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

#276

Post by IggleSniggle »

tengbretson wrote: post #98

The biggest thing that factors into your "cost of living" is not geographic, but rather the number of dependents you have. Oddly, you don't seem to see companies trying to base their compensation on this. Why do you suppose that is?

Oddly, I work for a company that pays for childcare costs as part of its compensation package.

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

#277

Post by airza »

satyrnein wrote: post #199
jasonjayr wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then companies should have no problems whatsoever with Unions? I mean, if a group of employees want to get together to amplify their negotiating power, then they should not stop that?

Does this include coercing the employer to only employ union members? What does the union say if the company wants to hire someone for cheap in another country, who wants the job?

Why is it suddenly coercion if your employees make this kind of negotiation using their collective bargaining ability? Employers are constantly able to dictate almost endless terms of employment, but if employees want the ability to exact more leverage using that power suddenly the supreme court and every supposed free-market guru shits their pants.

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

#278

Post by mgh2 »

ethanbond wrote: post #273
mgh2 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is funny how tech employees complain about this when it hits them personally, while employers have been discriminating for eternity. That clause at the bottom of a job page: "no discrimination based on citizenship, origin, etc..."? Just corporate/legal mumbo jumbo. This is how it feels for the non-elite, non-American. In a weird way, the pandemic is leveling the playing field. Democratize opportunities, increase c…

The pandemic is not at all leveling the playing field except maybe between the elite of one country and the elite of another. The non-elites everywhere are getting hosed.

I agree, maybe I meant non-US tech jobs.

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

#279

Post by proverbialbunny »

ma2rten wrote: post #139
klodolph wrote: post #91

Often overlooked in the discussions about privilege and equality is the discussion about how citizens of different countries are given different levels of access to the same jobs. Like, I’m a US citizen and have basic programming skills. Not long after college I landed a software engineering job and I immediately have access to markets like SF or NYC, all I have to do is pack up and move (and it turns out I don’t eve…

This comes down to a philosophical question: what would be the ideal way to give access to opportunities? Should only smart and hard working people people get them? Both of those things are in large part determined by genes. If you take this to the extreme we could give every child a gene and IQ test and determine based on that if they should live in a slum or in luxury. I don’t think that there is a good answer.

IQ ≠ intelligence, and intelligence has only a fraction to do with genes.

Overly simplistic summary: Intelligence is how quickly you can learn, how well you learn it, and how well you retain it.

Learning skills has to do with meta-learning and how you're taught to learn. Liquid intelligence is a skill that can to a degree be taught. Retaining knowledge has quite a bit to do with how you learn it. Some people are gifted and remember everything by default, but for everyone else there is meta-learning.

Of course, I'm being overly simplistic, due to intelligence being a complex topic, but the point is, intelligence isn't all genes. If you want to increase your intelligence, you can make that a hobby.

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

#280

Post by simonebrunozzi »

jasonjayr wrote: post #136
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #112

> You should expect "equal pay for equal work" at your new remote job So naive. In an ideal, utopian world? Maybe it would work this way. Maybe. In reality, your compensation is a function of your negotiating power. Some people, in fact, manage to get the same pay even when working remote, because they're "highly employable". Others don't. And let me add: I almost agree that remote work shouldn't necessarily command…

Then companies should have no problems whatsoever with Unions? I mean, if a group of employees want to get together to amplify their negotiating power, then they should not stop that?

I didn't say anything about Unions. I am not an expert, but my humble, quick one-liner to describe how I see Unions is the following:

Unions are good to protect employees that don't have negotiating power (e.g. factory workers), otherwise companies would take too much advantage of them.

I am not sure this necessarily applies to knowledge workers, especially if their work can be done remotely to some extent.

And I am not saying that I am against unions; but like with everything else in life, everything comes with pros and cons.

I have personally witnessed several examples of unions using their position to drive their political agenda at the expense of well-intentioned companies (most of it in my home country, Italy, in the 1990s and 2000s). So, beware: unions do not solve everything; they bring their own set of problems.

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