When the Boss Says, 'Don't Tell Your Coworkers How Much You Get Paid' • Hacker News Board

Re: When the Boss Says, 'Don't Tell Your Coworkers How Much You Get Paid'

#211

Post by nawitus » Sun, Jan 25, 2015, 10:01 AM UTC

lotsofmangos wrote: post #165

nawitus wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good reason for the state to pay for maternity leave instead of individual companies.

If the state pays then the companies are paying anyway, and it is still a spread cost as long as anti-discrimination law is being enforced. The continued existence of the species through childbirth is something that organizations should really factor into their budgets. Is not exactly a difficult cost to foresee as people have been doing it for quite a while now.

>If the state pays then the companies are paying anyway

Yes, but it's better for the state to pay it so that because if companies pay maternity leaves completely, the cost is not distributed evenly.

>The continued existence of the species through childbirth is something that organizations should really factor into their budgets.

I disagree, that should be the responsibility of the state and individual families.

>Is not exactly a difficult cost to foresee as people have been doing it for quite a while now.

It's a cost that is easy to foresee if your company is large. If the company consists of 1-2 employees, the company can go bankrupt from the costs. I've talked to an entrepreneur whose company actually did go bankrupt from maternity leave costs.

Re: When the Boss Says, 'Don't Tell Your Coworkers How Much You Get Paid'

#212

Post by Robadob » Sun, Jan 25, 2015, 11:55 AM UTC

lotsofmangos wrote: post #204

Robadob wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was someone else who made that initial claim of 2%, however if you read the full summary of my second link, they admit to only accounting for factors they were able to measure. So additional factors they didn't account for, may have influence towards the divide (other than gender-pay), and may account for any number that could further reduce that 4.8-7.1%. I'm not saying it is as low as 2-3%, but its certainly pos…

It was someone else who made that initial claim of 2% Sorry, complete failure to pay attention on my part. Though as to your other point, unmeasured factors could push the figure either way, so if you allow the error bars to go as low as 2% purely on a hunch, then you should also consider that it could be up to 9.9%, if trying to work out any sort of reasonable policy.

That's true, I suppose I was too optimistic in my analysis, there will definitely be some unmeasurable factors pushing in each direction.

Re: When the Boss Says, 'Don't Tell Your Coworkers How Much You Get Paid'

#213

Post by asgard1024 » Sun, Jan 25, 2015, 12:07 PM UTC

sxp wrote: post #117

nickbauman wrote: post #108

Didn't everyone work this issue out when they first entered the work force? Soon after I got my first job out of college my employer told me it was "not a good idea to talk about your compensation" with my co-workers. You know how they say "consider the source" when you get information? Why would my employer not want me to share my compensation with my co-workers? _Because it benefits them_ if their workforce is obli…

If you know the salary of the people you're directly working with, things can get awkward. One alternative is to discuss salary with people who are sufficiently distant from your daily work but are expected to be making the same amount as you. For large companies, this would be people in different divisions who have the same title and years of experience. For small companies, you will probably need to talk to people…

> If you know the salary of the people you're directly working with, things can get awkward.

It's interesting that it isn't awkward for the managers, knowing how much their reports make.

Re: When the Boss Says, 'Don't Tell Your Coworkers How Much You Get Paid'

#214

Post by davidb_ » Sun, Jan 25, 2015, 1:01 PM UTC

asgard1024 wrote: post #213

sxp wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you know the salary of the people you're directly working with, things can get awkward. One alternative is to discuss salary with people who are sufficiently distant from your daily work but are expected to be making the same amount as you. For large companies, this would be people in different divisions who have the same title and years of experience. For small companies, you will probably need to talk to people…

> If you know the salary of the people you're directly working with, things can get awkward. It's interesting that it isn't awkward for the managers, knowing how much their reports make.

Or for the employee that gets a promotion to manager, and then finds out how much their former coworkers earned.

Re: When the Boss Says, 'Don't Tell Your Coworkers How Much You Get Paid'

#215

Post by charlesdm » Sun, Jan 25, 2015, 1:06 PM UTC

Iv wrote: post #203

charlesdm wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was the CEO a shareholder? Sometimes CEO/CTO/COO salaries are distorted (e.g. artificially high or low), depending on if they are a significant shareholder and if they are getting dividends or capital gains from stock.

He was a major shareholder claiming that he did not care about his salary at all.

At the end of the day, that money would most likely flow back to him in dividends (or through a capital gain) at some point in the future.

You can't compare the salary of a CEO who is also a major shareholder, with a plain employee salary.

Re: When the Boss Says, 'Don't Tell Your Coworkers How Much You Get Paid'

#216

Post by Jugurtha » Sun, Jan 25, 2015, 1:40 PM UTC

serve_yay wrote: post #21

Jugurtha wrote: post #15

I was at a company once where they talked about it casually. The career path was clear, etc. You had your salary, and your bonus. The bonus is easy to compute: It was a percentage of how much the company charged the other company for the work you did. Like if the job you did that day cost $200k, you get 2k. But to get back on topic, I think everyone should take a look at a book called "Winning Through Intimidation" b…

That does sound good, thanks for the tip.

You're welcome.

Re: When the Boss Says, 'Don't Tell Your Coworkers How Much You Get Paid'

#217

Post by sokoloff » Sun, Jan 25, 2015, 1:41 PM UTC

kd0amg wrote: post #209

sokoloff wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the wage level for an industry segment not related to the simple supply and demand relationship for labor in that segment?

Why is that different from reduced demand? Sexism reduces the amount people are willing to pay for the labor of the supposedly-inferior sex.

So whom should the nurses sue to recover their theoretical damages in that case?

If I decide to groom my dog myself, can I expect a lawsuit down the road for my non-consumption of professional dog grooming services if any dog groomer is a member of any minority class? After all, you can't be sure that I'm just a cheapskate who likes washing my dog; I might be racist/classist/sexist.

In case it's not clear, I view the decision to consume in a free market to be a free choice and not subject to judicial review.

Re: When the Boss Says, 'Don't Tell Your Coworkers How Much You Get Paid'

#218

Post by Steuard » Sun, Jan 25, 2015, 2:44 PM UTC

Tycho wrote: post #194

Steuard wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea what the right number is. But as the article points out, part of the issue is precisely that traditionally female jobs tend to pay less because they are traditionally female. Here's one apparent example of that in action: "One of my lecturers at university once presented us with this thought exercise: why are doctors so highly paid, and so well-respected? Our answers were predictable. Because they save…

Hmm. It's a bit suspicious that communism/socialism isn't part of the argument here. Seems pretty obvious to me that in a free market, doctors would always be highly paid as they take years to train and everyone, rich or poor, needs them. But in a non-free market where they can't demand their true price, who would want to be a doctor? I'd expect that is a much bigger factor towards it being low status than the fact t…

Russia hasn't been communist in that sense for decades. There are plenty of professions there that have become exceedingly wealthy in that time, but doctors have not. So to make your case, you'd need to demonstrate 1) that specific ongoing regulatory burdens in Russia have served to suppress physician pay, and 2) that the persistence of those particular burdens in Russia's era of deregulation is not linked to gender bias.

Your "seems pretty obvious to me" is only valid if you assume a priori that there are no distortions to the pure, free market outcome due to irrationality on the part of market participants. Systematic gender bias would be a clear example of irrationality (which I assume you'd agree with even if you didn't believe it were actually at work here). You may not mean it this way, but your phrasing sounds to me like you're assuming your conclusion.

Re: When the Boss Says, 'Don't Tell Your Coworkers How Much You Get Paid'

#219

Post by TheLoneWolfling » Sun, Jan 25, 2015, 4:41 PM UTC

jrs235 wrote: post #207

TheLoneWolfling wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also an issue with maternity leave. Maternity leave means that women effectively cost more than men for the same amount of work, in the long run and on average. This can be mitigated by laws, but cannot be eliminated without addressing the underlying social issues. And no, mandatory paternity leave doesn't eliminate it, as there are more single mothers than single fathers. The logic is simple. Companies survi…

If maternity and paternity leave is leave without pay (unless one elects or has to use available accrued paid time off) then it shouldn't matter. Except having to plan around a short term vacancy can be an undesirable problem for a manager or company No matter the position goes vacant for that period of time or if a temp worker is hired to fill it, you will have a loss in productivity.

If maternity and paternity leave is without pay it's still advantageous for the company to hire men over women, as they will have to hire temps more often on average for maternity leave with a women over a man.

And temps generally are worse productivity-wise than an experienced worker.

Re: When the Boss Says, 'Don't Tell Your Coworkers How Much You Get Paid'

#220

Post by TheLoneWolfling » Sun, Jan 25, 2015, 4:45 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #196

TheLoneWolfling wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also an issue with maternity leave. Maternity leave means that women effectively cost more than men for the same amount of work, in the long run and on average. This can be mitigated by laws, but cannot be eliminated without addressing the underlying social issues. And no, mandatory paternity leave doesn't eliminate it, as there are more single mothers than single fathers. The logic is simple. Companies survi…

> And I'm not sure if it is one that can be fixed through legislation Well, one think the government could do is to cover pay during sick leave, parental leave and child care leave (i.e. when children are sick). This would also benefit startups/new businesses, where employees being sick/pregnant is not just statistics, but can make or break a business.

That will mitigate the issue, but not fix it.

As having an experienced worker go MIA for months is bad for a company in terms of productivity, and substantially more women take maternity leave than men take paternity leave.

A temp worker is seldom as good at their job as an experienced worker.

Personally, I don't think government should cover things like sick leave, but that is another matter entirely. (In general, the larger the system, the less incentive for any one person in the system to keep the system as a whole running smoothly.)