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Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

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Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their customers are happy. And that means Congress is kept happy. You are not their customer and Congress doesn't care if you are happy.

This is what crony capitalism looks like.

I think it’s hard to look at what capitalism has become today and say much positive about it.

I say this as someone who works in investment finance where we sell semi-rich semi-professional investors the opportunity to become richer by building solar and wind power plants, and selling them when they are fully operational. Which is about as positive as it gets in capitalism in my experience, considering we’re actually helping the world move in the right direction as far as climate change goes.

It is, however, still contributing to the inequality in the world. I had a lot of experience from the Danish public sector digitalisation before joining my current company, and I have a second job as an external examiner for CS students, so it is fair to say that I’m likely in the top 10% of paid developers in my region. If you invest with us, you can make 10 million Danish kroner into 20 million Danish kroner in 5-10 years, and while you do so by fighting climate change, I make around 1 million Danish kroner in savings over 10 years, as one of the better paid non top-level managers in my country.

As you’ve probably guessed I’m Danish, and we’re probably famous for our take on society in that all our political parties are basically a different colour of social democrats, and we have been like this since what is essentially the dawn of modern Denmark, so equality is a big part of our society, as in, if a private company builds an apartment complex in the most attractive part of our city, they are required by law to make at least 10% of those apartment available for rent to the “common people” at the cities disposal. That’s how much we care about equality, and the best example of capitalism we have is making rich people much richer by basically doing nothing.

Another thing we are famous for is community ownerships. The best example is that we have two major supermarket chains, one is owned by investors the other is owned by the people who shop there. Guess which one has been driving positive change forward, repeatedly been reinvesting in its own business and it’s employees and under covid sent 100% of its profits on things like clothes on to small clothing stores that were closed due to lockdown?

Now I’ve ranted for a while, and it may sound like I’m getting somewhere, but I’m actually not. Because the issue with co-operative ownership is that it makes it very hard to start something new. The big co-operative ownership organisations we have typically came to be by a lot of smaller organisations joining together after they were established. The solar farms we build are a good example of this in play. We’re going to build a couple of thousand of them over the next five years and while non-profits movements have certainly helped made it a profitable area, no one outside of private investors are going to build even close to this amount. So how do you change the world without capitalism?

The answer is probably in taxing the rich, but good luck with that.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#383
post #131
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opt out of the system as soon as you possibly can. No mortgage, no bank, no address, no traditional job.

Or, combine with other people to fight the ridiculous system? Even if you manage to pull off a life like this, you're limiting yourself significantly and leaving many people behind.

No post body was provided.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#384

if this is really that - this is clearly evidence of collusion amongst employers with indirect pressure on them to keep salalries at a certain level

Exactly this. There's a reason using past salary history in employment is illegal in California.

Though you should know that doesn’t stop interviewers from asking.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#385
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to. Your employer can give this info to whoever they want, and many give this data to Equifax or one of the other credit agencies. Also, you might give your bank employment details, and your bank will most likely send that info to a credit agency as well. There's not much of an escape.

Opt out of the system as soon as you possibly can. No mortgage, no bank, no address, no traditional job.

No mortgage and no job are achievable.

You kind of need a bank, if you go around with cash the police or other criminals can just seize it.

You also may want an address to live somewhere, I'd rather live in a house than in a car.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#386
post #349

Does this website or any other similar ones show your performance, your rehire-ability or if you got fired from a previous job? (outside of what can be inferred from your compensation)

Not exactly. It says active or terminated (we switched payroll providers) on my few.

Interesting, does terminated mean that you got fired or just that you generically don't work there anymore (which is used for both when you quit voluntarily and when you're fired)?

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they didn't their employees would be pretty pissed when they're unable to get a mortgage.

So go to HR and say "please sign this form that says I make $X" rather than preemptively broadcasting it?

Here's how I imagine this goes down:

ADP Rep: "Hey, we have an exciting new feature to offer you! We partner with the worlds premiere credit and employment reporting agency to eliminate the hassle of salary and employment verification."

VP, HR: "Go on..."

ADP: "If you opt in to this innovative program, you'll never again have to respond to your employees' lenders or landlords. 97% of banks participate in this program. Instead of them asking their applicant—your employee—for paperwork that you have to deal with, they come direct to the source automatically. Again, this is at no additional cost. It's included with our Premium Payroll Plus offering. Interested?"

HR: "Yeah, of course. One less thing I have to deal with"

ADP: "And the best part is you'll then qualify for a substantial discount on our partner's Employment Data System. Rest easy with unlimited verification reports for all your prospective new hires"

HR: "Anyone ever turn this down?"

ADP: "Almost never."

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#390
post #268

I don't get culture issue, in many countries I lived in never met anyone that had any issue sharing salary data. In fact, most of them openely discuss such matters. Never got why in US it is so "pssst, keep it low" when discussing such matters.

This seems to be a tool aimed at employers, enabling them to compare and verify salary data of potential candidates. It adds to the information imbalance already present and doesn't seem to be empowering or helping employees unless they actively share their numbers - an option they always had.

> an option they always had

No, they didn't. Many contracts explicitly forbid it and not every employee has the knowledge, courage or frankly financial stability to go against their employer.

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