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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

#541

Post by arrosenberg »

superfrank wrote: post #526
arrosenberg wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 su…

I don't really have a positive or negative take on the situation. It's the workers' rights to try and fight for a higher salary and it's the companies' rights to either pay them or tell them no. The majority of the workers affected by this are making well above the poverty line, so I'm happy to let the free market handle this. What I do have a very negative view on is articles like this that try and frame it as some…

I don't think the author is pretending it isn't about money - that seems to be the central thesis of the entire article. The point they are making is that if the author wants to live in India, if the work is entirely remote anyways, they shouldn't have to provide additional value.

If his work was worth $100K when he lived in SF, why isn't the equivalent work worth $100K in Wichita?

To me it seems like a recognition of the fact that for remote work, location doesn't really matter, so the market rate is national or global. If Starbucks wants to hire, they can base their pay rate on the local labor market, but software companies should expect to pay a national rate for those types of jobs going forward if remote work is going to be more of a standard.

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

#542

Post by JAlexoid »

KittenInABox wrote: post #269
yeetman21 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To reply to your point about H1B: Unions are normally very nativist and would be the last group pushing for better/ more H1B visas. The Union reaction to the TPP should have indicated something. I feel as if the ageism is more on the worker's shoulders. Many of us are young, and the field is on the younger side on average

Unions can be nativist but a tech union shouldn't have to be just because another labor union might've been. Ageism is on the worker's shoulders, but those workers are also managers who choose to do bullshit like lay off workers above a certain age across a company. We need ways to protect ourselves from that.

Tech workers are no more or less nativist, than anyone else.

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

#543

Post by csense »

csense wrote: post #527
femtoparsec wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the employer, it often works differently. You interview a number of people as final candidates you find good fits for different reasons. Each person presents some extra benefits and some shortcomings. You then balance it off against the costs of hiring each person, and you make a final decision on that basis. At that stage, someone who'd be an appropriate "right next step" for the company at $80K may not be the ri…

It might be helpful to give an example. Buffer is a company that is open about its salary formula. Their formula has exactly the problems I'm talking about. See here: https://buffer.com/salary/customer-engagement-strategist/ave... > At that stage, someone who'd be an appropriate "right next step" for the company at $80K may not be the right next step if they were at $100K This is the right way to look at things. You…

I should address the whole conspiracy theory aspect of this.

I don't seriously think there's some cackling cabal of coastal elites having secret meetings about how to keep flyover country poor.

I think it's various companies using lifestyle-based reasoning. That is, instead of numerical salary offers, the company thinks it's better to offer a specific lifestyle level in a geographically neutral way, which translates into different salaries for different locations.

Unfortunately the policy such reasoning leads to is exactly the same one that the conspiracy of coastal elites would implement (if it actually existed): Based solely on their location, pay people who live in Middle America less than you pay BigTechCity residents for the same work.

I'm trying to explain that you have to look at lifestyle-based reasoning from one particular perspective for it to make sense. There are other reasonable perspectives which reveal it to be a stupid, absurd policy.

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

#544

Post by a_imho »

pc86 wrote: post #446
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…

> Only difference is remote is not protected class, but that is simply an implementation detail. Of course it's not a protected class, and that's by design. Protected classes are things you cannot change (with the exception of religion), and thus you shouldn't be able to discriminate based on them. You wanting to live in Kansas doesn't (shouldn't) afford you some protected status giving you an artificial pay increase…

You can't just discount the exceptions to make an argument. Uprooting a family and moving to a different country while being in the mercy of a work visa is not something to be taken lightly either in practice. Anyway the point is not who should belong into a protected class, in fact when there were no legal protections it was still not fair to underpay some folks just because companies could get away with it. It just happens companies can do it with remote workers as of today.

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

#545

Post by JAlexoid »

paridhi7 wrote: post #369
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…

>A company's goal is to "extract" from each employee more value than his/her/their salary. If a company manages to save on a salary because the employee doesn't have much negotiating power, good for the company. So, according to you, companies should have kept exploiting women and kept discriminating against under-represented groups by paying them less, because they didn't have "much negotiating power" and because it…

They shouldn't.... But they shouldn't, because society should shun those companies.... not because government made it illegal.

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

#546

Post by whimsicalism »

JAlexoid wrote: post #534
whimsicalism wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People love to paint this world of voluntary transactions and consensual agreements, but then corporations turn around and push for right-to-work laws which infringe freedom of association and contract by making it illegal for companies to sign security clause contracts with Unions. Why should a voluntary, consensual signing of a contract be made illegal?

Mandated unions, union bans and laws undermining union contracts - are all infringements on freedom of association.

> Mandated unions

Unions aren't mandated by law anywhere.

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

#547

Post by a_imho »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #343
a_imho wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You said this was a compelling moral argument. I don't believe the moral content is at all clear and give examples of why not. Would you mind responding to those? Apple prices have converged quite a lot - but note that the labor content of their products prices changes very little as everything is made in same factories in China. McDonalds (another multinational with a quite standardized product offering across marke…

I'm not sure I understand your concerns. Why would it not be OK to receive the same compensation for the same work?

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

#548

Post by jpambrun »

This COL argument only makes sense if everyone rents and regional wealth is ignored.

Say I buy a condo in SF and a colleague buys something equivalent in Iowa. Our employer pays us borh so we have equivalent revenue after mortgage.

After 20 years I can sell my condo, move to Iowa, buy his condo and then two more like it.

This is now way to put it that makes this fair.

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

#549

Post by yboris »

joelbluminator wrote: post #522
yboris wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a challenge talking about this topic. It's very easy to come off as "I'm better than you" or "you are a bad person". But these conversations can be productive and non-offensive. I encourage people to see a wide continuum between eating 100% meat and eating 0% animal products. I express that I understand the challenges in decreasing one's meat consumption. I point out that it's not all or nothing - you can be "mo…

Did you actually manage to convince anyone to stop eating meat, who wasn't already having major doubts about what he was doing to begin with? If so how?

I have had many friends share with me that they have decreased their meat consumption.

I am not under the illusion that I was the person who caused that change. Change rarely works this way. Our decisions to do something (especially this drastic) are composed of numerous influences.

Part of change is about what people expect to be the new normal. If all your friends are ok with homosexual marriages, you'll likely change your point of view soon enough anyway. If many of your friends at least mention that they are concerned about factory farm abuses of animals, you might one day decide to eat one less hamburger.

Change is much easier when younger; I changed during college years. I'm now 35 and I'm sure to have nudged at least some of my friends to eat less meat in the last decade. Much of it probably was just my consistency. If your friend tries a fad diet, you can ignore it. If their diet lasts 5 years, you'll at least want to learn more about why and how.

It's an important issue to change others' opinions on. A great book about this subject is "Change of Heart: What Psychology Can Teach Us About Spreading Social Change" by Nick Cooney

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

#550

Post by nybble41 »

bumby wrote: post #528
nybble41 wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are times when a completely free market doesn't serve the best interest of society In my opinion the best interests of society are best served by letting people make their own decisions regarding themselves and their own property, and not by aggression or deliberate attempts at social engineering. I tend to be pro-market on average but really it's not the market I'm interested in so much as liberty. I also ta…

I got the impression from your previous posts that you take the libertarian mindset to markets. That's not a bad thing per se, but I think it diverges from what most of society implicitly wants. You stance optimizes for liberty as you rightly point out. People, however, generally want a society that balances liberty and stability. Laws and policies are enacted to try and find that right balance. It's similar to the c…

> People, however, generally want a society that balances liberty and stability.

Stability is certainly a worthwhile goal, to a point—in the end nothing alive can be completely stable—but there is no reason why it must come at the expense of liberty. The main issue is negative externalities, which are already addressed by the Non-Aggression Principle; i.e. your liberty applies to yourself and your own property, not other people or their property, unless they consent. Libertarian society is not a free-for-all. What little scope for petty conflict remains can be addressed adequately through social means rather than force.

> In a well-functioning democracy, the people are the government so the idea of a governmental monopoly is diluted somewhat.

Even in the ideal model, "the people are the government" in approximately the same way that individuals cells are a human being. Part of a vast collective, in other words, with no individual influence or control, retained only to serve the collective, and ultimately disposable. That's fine for cells in the body but a horrible way to think about sentient beings.

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