Boy, this article is really getting on the nerves of some first-world people! :p
"Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs
331–340 of 624 posts
Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs
#332Earlier 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…
> But the moral argument about equal work should be equally compensated is nigh unchallengable. I don't the think premise is at all clear, never mind 'unchallengeable', especially if you take 'be equally compensated' to mean 'have the same nominal cash pay'. Why is 'nominal cash' equivalence superior to 'purchasing power parity' from a moral perspective, for example? Is it moral for some workers to receive rewards th…
Because purchasing power parity has nothing to do with selling labour and work is what should be compensated. Purchasing power is none of the employer's business. Purchasing power means what you want it to mean. Will Apple adjust it prices to reflect on the local markets?
Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs
#333Say you have a startup in California and are thinking about hiring me remotely.
It's completely ridiculous that you say "Okay I'll give you $100k if you live in NYC, but only $60k for the same work if you live in the Rust Belt."
If it makes economic sense for you to pay me $100k, making that conditional on where I live is just a jerk move.
As someone who actually does live in the Rust Belt, it feels like these tech companies are saying "Yeah we're going to actively try to keep the wealth created by our business models concentrated in the coastal cities we like, and keep the rest of the country poor."
Thought experiment: I have a friend in NYC. I tell the company "Yeah you should totally pay me $100k, I live in high-CoL area, $FriendsAddress is my NYC address." Then I simply don't tell anyone at the company I'm actually doing my job from somewhere in West Virginia or Indiana or Wisconsin. How would the company even know the difference? On the rare occasion the company or someone sends me some work-related postal mail, my friend can simply forward it to me.
In practice I wouldn't do this. I'd simply walk away from a company that uses this offensive hiring practice on me.
Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having worked at a US automotive plant as a SWE: yes, they were and they still should be. I don't consider them any less skilled because their work is merely different than mine as an engineer whose primary tool is a keyboard versus a high-pressure water jet. Their skills are just different .
I don’t think the tool is as important as the what you’re doing with it. QA is done with a keyboard but is considered less skilled. Sculpting statues may use a water jet but would be considered more skilled. So the question seems to me: what are people doing with these water jets in US automotive plants? How long does it take to learn? How much variance is there in ability? (We talk about 10x programmers, are there 1…
(We talk about 10x programmers, are there 10x machinists?)
Yes. Why wouldn't there be? Asking honestly?
A story, if you will-because I have a very intimate relationship with industrial machinists: My father was a certified industrial welder, pipe fitter and metallurgist for General Electric's gas turbine division for 32 years (he was also a licensed master electrician) He was the only individual in his functional team with the number of licenses and depth of mechanical engineering background to his name. He oversaw several manufacturing retrofits in their plant, and lead a team of 10 other engineers, all of whom through his time and tenure became family friends. I know all of their stories and backgrounds intimately.
When he left GE due to layoffs in the early 1990's, he opened his own shop and hired several of those machinists to come work for him. Despite getting to see this work daily, up close, and learn for myself the family trade of metal smithing (both of my brothers, my father, two of his brothers and my grandfather were all metal workers and passed down the trade through to my generation), I was the first to cross over the digital divide and go white collar as a full-time career, but I still have a strong appreciation for mechanized labor and I took this with me into automotive.
So, all of that said, to answer the question, I think yes, there absolutely are 10x machinists (I don't personally buy into the "10x" thing generally-at least not the way it is sometimes applied, but in alignment with your question, yes) and I remain firm in my objection that these people are less skilled because their skills are different or differently applied than ours as SWEs.
Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs
#335> 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…
> In reality, your compensation is a function of your negotiating power. Ahhmm, no. Where does negotiation power stem from? Is it a skill? No. You are a product much like eveything else in this economy and you price is a function of how much you cost (living cost, heavily depedent on location) + supply/demand trends. Yes, your attitude and negotiation skills can impact your salary but only by a bit. You can't get you…
The lesson is: don't be a commodity.
Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's sort of the opposite here in Canada, where dairy production is managed on a quota system (you need quota to produce and sell) and the quota is regulated such that the price remains stable (and more expensive than in the US) for the benefit of the farmers who have quota and in theory the public, who has a reliable "reasonable" price. It's dubious on many levels, but has its defenders.
End result of this being if I want to produce milk with dairy cows I can't?
Correct. (There are exemptions for farms with a small number of cows)
Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs
#337> 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…
"So naive."
Depends on the law. If I'm female, and you're male, then equal pay laws may force it to be the same for equivalent work.
Most of the rest of the world forces business to compete for labour - which is as it should be.
Jobs, not people, should wait.
Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs
#338If you live in the US and are advocating for this be careful what you wish for. It could lead to your 100-200K per year salary being cut to well below 100K to equalize across all engineers including those in low cost areas such as China and India.
The Software Developers will follow the path of the Autoworkers of the 60s, once a high paid and esteemed profession which becomes a menial job with average pay. It is not that far either, I bet Software Developers do not have beyond 7 years for this to take shape and of course, those massive layoffs are just around the corner when remote works becomes the standard.
Outside the big US tech jobs, software is already a menial job. Currently for quite a lot of money, but not even in the same order of magnitude as Silicon Valley pay.
Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In reality, your compensation is a function of your negotiating power. Ahhmm, no. Where does negotiation power stem from? Is it a skill? No. You are a product much like eveything else in this economy and you price is a function of how much you cost (living cost, heavily depedent on location) + supply/demand trends. Yes, your attitude and negotiation skills can impact your salary but only by a bit. You can't get you…
The lesson is: don't be a commodity.
Honestly interested in hearing your opinion on how to do that.
Re: "Equal pay for equal work" in remote jobs
#340> 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…
> You want to pay $2 dollars for milk, instead of $20? That's thanks to competition between companies. It's not though. "The support granted to U.S dairy producers represented approximately [...] 73% of the farmers' marketplace revenue. USDA data also reveals that US dairy farmers operate at a loss, and have a cost of production that is higher than what they earn from the marketplace."[1] We're subsidizing the low co…
He wasn't talking about milk.