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EU to mandate public salary information for all job postings [pdf]

europarl.europa.eu

281–290 of 388 posts

Re: EU to mandate public salary information for all job postings [pdf]

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read somewhere pay transparency just lowers the amount of pay for disagreeable people who try to earn more. It makes things cheaper for businesses in general because it's harder to get a rise. Nobody has ever been able to define what equal pay for equal work means because every human being is different (skills, work ethic, ease of working with them, timeliness, negotiation skills, assertiveness, leadership ability…

>I read somewhere pay transparency just lowers the amount of pay for disagreeable people who try to earn more. It makes things cheaper for businesses in general because it's harder to get a rise. Then wouldn't you see businesses fighting for it instead of against it?

How do you know whether businesses are in favour or fighting it? Or what if they appear to be fighting it while they're secretly lobbying for it with their EU contacts?

A trend I noticed from all the EU regulation concerning business: you can be certain it will look like it's doing good for people and bad for business but it will just end up screwing common people and small businesses in favour of big businesses.

Think about VATMOSS: great, now Amazon can't charge Luxembourg VAT to customers in France BUT small businesses need to keep track of every EU country VAT, apply it and retain 3 pieces of evidence of the customer location. In practice, small business killed their eCommerces and moved to Amazon or just swapped their payment processors for Paddle (which charges way more but handles VAT for you).

Think about GDPR: it was a money transfer from people to lawyers and businesses are still doing whatever data transfer they need just by adding more text to their EULA which nobody reads.

We'll see how this one goes - but it makes sense that more transparency will have a chilling effect on the cost of high performers who know how to negotiate.

Re: EU to mandate public salary information for all job postings [pdf]

#282
post #45

You know its a crap proposal when heroic bragging about equal pay for everyone ends up being about the gender gap only. Age, religion, nationality and the classic: "I don't like you" not included.

ok, perhaps put a bit blunt.

The result is that people looking for equal reward end up digging though bloated discrimination laws seemingly talking about everyone except them. IMHO if you have to be a member of a protected group or gender it is unequal treatment. It is the exact behavior we were trying to get rid of.

Lets do equality without some being more equal than others.

Re: EU to mandate public salary information for all job postings [pdf]

#283
post #233

Is there anything in this mandate that prevents corporations from listing unreasonably large ranges? For the sake of this example, let's say FAANG is looking for a software engineer and the range for the job listing is: 68k - 600k . Would this be allowed? I ask because Denver, Colorado has identical mandated restrictions for job listings, and employers are skirting regulations by offering ridiculously broad ranges, p…

I'm very interested in this too.

OTOH it can't be worse than no info at all!

Re: EU to mandate public salary information for all job postings [pdf]

#284
Where does contracting fit into all of this? If you leave the formal structure of employment and don't fit into the set job titles of a company (or within, but as a contractor and so a different pay band), then can you effectively work around this?

If so, then will those currently getting paid more move into contracting? They'd probably end up with more pay (even than they get now) if they did, so will we see a decrease in the statistical pay gap within categories based on formal job titles, but an increase in the real world pay gap between those that are actually earning more and less under the current system?

So, it looks better on paper, but - if you care about the difference in pay - it gets worse in reality.

Do we see this kind of thing already in the public sector in any countries? They often have public pay bands, but, as I understand things[1], in many places contractors, consultants, and such like can make better money by working outside of this system. So, transparent and formally equal, but actually less equal.

I wonder, if we'll one day read about this in the economist. How there is a growing real pay gap, and how it differs from the formal pay gap. How legislators are trying to respond, but businesses and contractors are fighting back.

[1] based mostly on anecdote and hearsay, rather than real knowledge, so please correct me!

Edited for styling.

Re: EU to mandate public salary information for all job postings [pdf]

#285
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is that once you remove the "rockstar" from a team (and by this I mean that they leave) the other employees take over their tasks and responsibilities without issues, and everything works fine. Which makes me believe the rockstar effect is quite often just a myth.

I have similar experiences. Some people like to be in the forefront. Others, like me, fill in the gaps and don't care about being "seen". When I lead, it's because there's a need for my leadership. I don't micromanage. I do what is necessary for the team to perform. That's it. If someone else needs or wants to fill that leadership role, then I allow them to take the spotlight.

yup, it's easy to "do it all yourself". The real rockstars are the ones who quietly mentor the other team members over and over again until they are up to speed on their own.

Re: EU to mandate public salary information for all job postings [pdf]

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Err, no it's not, big engineering firms (google, facebook, etc) have formalized job titles and 'ranks' and provide a clear path for advancement - and they publish pay ranges for those titles/ranks.

>they publish pay ranges for those titles/ranks. They do? I'd love to see that if you have a link.

Colorado requires disclosure of base salary, so you can look at Colorado job listings at https://google.com/careers to get a ballpark idea. This works for other large companies, too.

Of course, pay varies by location, and compensation includes more than just base salary, but it will give you a starting point.

Re: EU to mandate public salary information for all job postings [pdf]

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Job title -> pay range. If you do work that does not match your job title (or job description) and your boss refuses to acknowledge it, I'm confident there's existing legal pathways to deal with it - with the help of unions if need be.

What about flat companies? At my current company, everyone is simply a software engineer and you are paid based on your value. Everyone seems happy with the arrangement.

> What about flat companies?

I also work in a flat company. Actually some weeks ago, one of my colleagues was applying to a new credit card. So the bank called our HR team to very a colleague's salary. I ended up taking the call due to a mishap on the phone system. So they needed to double check her salary, because she had mentioned 50% raise but no change in her job title. So I had to explain that's the way our company is.

Re: EU to mandate public salary information for all job postings [pdf]

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is that not everyone brings equal value to an org. Some are rockstars and others are meh. It’s natural, and you should be incentivized to improve.

"The reality is that not everyone brings equal value to an org. Some are rockstars and others are meh. It’s natural, and you should be incentivized to improve." I agree. But that's not incompatible with transparent pay. If this other person is producing more value and getting paid more, great. But show me how that value is twice my own. Those measurements should be going on in performance reviews. Largely, nobody car…

The way to do this fairly and transparently is piecemeal pay. Just like how instead of paying a factory worker £x per hour you can pay £y per widget. If superstar Bob ships 10x widgets he gets 10x pay and everyone will agree it is fair. Note CEO total compensation is usually £x per y% increase in share price or revenue. Salespeople get x% for each sale, and what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

You could always make things easier with min wage regs etc by giving a low living base wage and then a generous bonus based on what you ship.

Re: EU to mandate public salary information for all job postings [pdf]

#289
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminder: forgery / use of forged documents is forbidden in France, as per article 441-1 of the penal code. A man was recently sentenced to 4 months of jail time because he lied about his salary to rent an apartment. [0] [0]: https://www.capital.fr/economie-politique/un-locataire-conda...

There used to be another country which made resumes into a legal document: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeitsbuch#/media/Datei%3AA...

The fact that someone can ask you for your salary before renting you an apartment is not equivalent to what you point to.

I would prefer this system to the Equifax's panopticon to be honest.

The best system would be to have a third party insure your rent. So you would only communicate these kind of information to the third party of your choice with which you would have a legal contract including a privacy clause.

Re: EU to mandate public salary information for all job postings [pdf]

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they publish pay ranges for those titles/ranks. They do? I'd love to see that if you have a link.

I don't think they publish it publicly, but the data is available based on many different sources. This is one such aggregate: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-Engi...

> they publish pay ranges for those titles/ranks.

if it isn't public, then it isn't published.

I'm a fan of Levels.FYI, but you notice the rather large standard deviations for a number of pay grades, and it is self-reported which means the sample may not be representative.

and I haven't found anything better than levels.fyi

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