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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

#461

Post by arrosenberg »

superfrank wrote: post #456
darth_avocado wrote: post #444

No, equal pay for equal work, especially in remote jobs isn't going to work. Why is it that for almost the entire history of man, we've had wages decided based on COL, and suddenly when it comes to tech bros who are seeing a pay cut, we are all up in the arms? A Starbucks barista in SF gets paid one and half times that in Oklahoma. They do equal work, just different locations. A lady in the Zara sweatshops in Banglad…

> suddenly when it comes to tech bros who are seeing a pay cut, we are all up in the arms? I think you cut right to the heart of the issue here. As a software engineer, for years I've heard "If you want to make the big bucks, you have to move to the bay area" or some variation of that. No one on here seemed to have a problem with location based comp when it worked in their favor. Now that it's not people are up in ar…

> A lot of people in major tech hubs see an opportunity to game the system and are just hurt that companies aren't going to let them.

That seems like a negative way of framing it. They are exercising their rights as laborers. Whether or not they are successful is TBD, but they aren't "hurting" companies, they're negotiating. That larger groups are forming to collectively push the notion implies a greater chance of success.

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

#462

Post by whoknew1122 »

pc86 wrote: post #386
whoknew1122 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Companies can't stop you from unionizing." de jure != de facto Companies are legally prohibited from stopping unionization in the US. But that's not how it works in reality. Most people work in an 'at-will' states. This means a company can terminate employees at any time. Want to unionize? Have at it. All an employer needs to do is find is some company policy a person is violating (and trust me, EVERYONE is violat…

So what is your suggestion then

We could start with:

1.) Getting rid of at-will employment 2.) Have a NLRB that is functional and actually protects labor 3.) Lower the legal threshold for proving illicit anti-union activities 4.) Give teeth to laws protect that unionization and uniformly enforce those laws no matter the political party in power 5.) Staff the upper levels of the NLRB with career civil servants, not political appointees

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

#463

Post by ubercow13 »

darth_avocado wrote: post #444

No, equal pay for equal work, especially in remote jobs isn't going to work. Why is it that for almost the entire history of man, we've had wages decided based on COL, and suddenly when it comes to tech bros who are seeing a pay cut, we are all up in the arms? A Starbucks barista in SF gets paid one and half times that in Oklahoma. They do equal work, just different locations. A lady in the Zara sweatshops in Banglad…

>there'll be plenty of people there who can do your job for less with the same set of skills

Why weren't they already hired instead of the SF person, then?

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

#464

Post by lotsofpulp »

MetalGuru wrote: post #452
darth_avocado wrote: post #444

No, equal pay for equal work, especially in remote jobs isn't going to work. Why is it that for almost the entire history of man, we've had wages decided based on COL, and suddenly when it comes to tech bros who are seeing a pay cut, we are all up in the arms? A Starbucks barista in SF gets paid one and half times that in Oklahoma. They do equal work, just different locations. A lady in the Zara sweatshops in Banglad…

Pay isn’t directly based on COL. It’s based on supply and demand. If there were thousands of baristas available to fill jobs at SF Starbucks, the pay would be lower. The reason pay is higher in SV is because all the same firms were competing against each other for the limited supply of talent. One could argue the supply is impacted by COL, but it’s still only an indirect cause of pay determination.

I don't understand where people get the idea that prices are based on anything but supply and demand.

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

#465

Post by echelon »

jerf wrote: post #300
echelon wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm certainly not pro-union in tech, but this is something that could hasten its arrival. Just because I'm in Atlanta doesn't make me inherently worth less than my peers in SF.

Something everybody involved ought to understand before going too far down this road; you're not going to spread Silicon Valley prices all around the US and internationally. If you force the companies to pay a flat wage, you're going to get an averaging out at best, and nobody's going to be paid Silicon Valley's current wages. Whether this is good or bad is beside my point, as are what other second-order effects may…

Hiring is still hard and top talent is rare no matter where you are in the world. It's going to take a long time before prices bottom out.

I predict wages will stratify based on what kind of company you work for, not where you live. FAAMG will still pay top dollar. Best of luck if you work doing coding for, say, the Weather Channel.

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

#466

Post by cjaybo »

coward8675309 wrote: post #311
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The loss of institutional knowledge caused by a mass exodus at the same time would cripple them (and pretty much any company that doesn't have incredibly rigorous standards for documentation).

I've been at startups where we experienced 90% engineering turnover over 12 mo. due to M&A or change of leadership. We got by. I'm sure Fb could cope.

Aren't the dynamics of this type of turnover very different depending on the size of the company? It seems entirely unsurprising to me that a startup would fare better than a company that has been around for over a decade when trying to replace a significant chunk of its developers.

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

#467

Post by dontbeevil1992 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #419
nickff wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sort-of agree with you, but I was directly responding to the phrase: >"... they'll never think a failure to meet society's need is a market failure..."

Fair, I didn't actually read that comment that closely.

I was the one who first used the phrase market failure (wrongly, I gather). But the GP only used the idea that a market failed at something: "a failure of the marketplace", which is what my point still stands on.

If they only meant to talk about "market failures" as such, then they are guilty of pedantry

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

#468

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

dwaltrip wrote: post #396
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > You should expect "equal pay for equal work" ... > 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. > ...if you accept that you live in a market-enabled society, your salary is at stake, too. This logic horrifies me because it applies equally well to wage disparities based on protected classes. We have collectivel…

If a company is found to be discriminating by protected class, they are in big trouble. Sure, it can be difficult to catch. But what is your point exactly? Markets currently play a massive role in determining prices across our entire society. A wage is a price paid for an individual's labor. Labor markets are not perfect. No market is (despite the wailings of the ideologues). We try to fix these issues with specific…

The point is that “the markets don’t work that way” isn’t an argument that “society shouldn’t work that way.” We intercede in the case of protected classes because “economics therefore morality” isn’t a sound argument.

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

#469

Post by jstummbillig »

darth_avocado wrote: post #444

No, equal pay for equal work, especially in remote jobs isn't going to work. Why is it that for almost the entire history of man, we've had wages decided based on COL, and suddenly when it comes to tech bros who are seeing a pay cut, we are all up in the arms? A Starbucks barista in SF gets paid one and half times that in Oklahoma. They do equal work, just different locations. A lady in the Zara sweatshops in Banglad…

> Simple answer: economics.

Yes, that's a very simple answer – unfortunately, not entirely conclusive. A MacBook costs the same across the entire US. A Netflix subscription costs the same across the entire US.

Maybe equal pay is just the right kind of unreasonable: The one that will get increasingly more reasonable the more it is being done, providing a push towards a more egalitarian society, first interregional and then international.

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

#470

Post by anderspitman »

csense wrote: post #333

Say 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 c…

Salary has very little to do with the value you create for the company. It's about how much they're willing to pay and how little you're willing to be paid. Now that everything is going remote, chances are higher that there's someone else living next door to you in the Rust Belt who was previously making $60k for a local company, who would be ecstatic to add Facebook to their resume at the same pay they've been making.
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