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Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities

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Re: Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities

#131

Post by shandor »

gibba999 wrote: post #42
ncallaway wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the thing, though. Wrongful termination lawsuits aren't "proof beyond a reasonable doubt". Most civil actions—including wrongful termination—need to show a "preponderance of evidence". That is, you need to convince a jury that the claim is more likely to be true than not true (e.g. 51%). So, assuming you have evidence of the chain of events: - Group shares salary openly - Employer says: "you cannot do that", s…

Here's the other thing though. Law suits are expensive. Law suits burn bridges (you'll never get a recommendation from an employer you've sued). Law suits prevent future jobs (would you hire someone who sued a previous employer?). And wrongful termination isn't the end. And things are rarely black-and-white. If your boss thinks you're a douche, it will hurt your career. If your next performance review is a 7 instead…

> Law suits are expensive

Don't know about the US, but in countries with strong (or existing) worker unions the unions would jump at that kind of case to help the employee with expenses, legal counsel, and what have you.

Unions definitely have their problems, but keeping the employers on their toes about actually breaking the law is one of their big benefits.

Of course all that doesn't help with all the other things you brought up, so there's that.

Re: Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities

#132

Post by overgard »

At risk of sounding like a mercenary, in my experience the only realistic way to get paid your market value is to be on the market. It's just way easier to get a pay bump by switching jobs. If you wait for your employer to give you a raise, they usually will drag their feet for as long as possible and then give you something disappointing.

One consequence of this is, in companies that are willing to do it, it can be useful to negotiate a title promotion even if they don't give you a raise, because you can then use that title in your next job negotiation.

BTW, giving this advice depresses me. I'm constantly amazed companies make such a weak effort to retain employees via good compensation policies. The cost of recruiting and interviewing candidates, not to mention training new hires, is huge.

Re: Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities

#133

Post by jhanschoo »

verma7 wrote: post #90
jhanschoo wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the salaries are still too easily identifiable here's how it can be anonymized. Allow breaking down the salary into a sum of numbers, and putting them as separate slips into the hat.

How would you get the distribution from the sum of numbers individually?

You're right, you can't, I was looking at the problem posed by grandparent comment of getting only the average.

Re: Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities

#134

Post by MaximumYComb »

Pxtl wrote: post #57
tonitosou wrote: post #55

i dont understand why salaries should be same for a similar role. If I work twice as fast and with a better work quality than my collegue why shouldn't i get double his salary? are we in a communist country?

I work in healthcare where this is handled by job titles and it seems a lot healthier. Job title makes it clear that it's about greater responsibilities. "Why is Jeff paid more than me" "Because Jeff is senior dev and you're junior dev" is a much easier conversation to have, and everybody's job title is very visible.

I spent a decade in a similar paid field and while pay was tied to position there was no real way besides time to figure out position. Junior dev vs senior dev is often a matter of time and not ability.

Re: Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities

#135

Post by LockAndLol »

I don't know what's in their contracts, but they all leave and make a new company to pay each other fairly? One of those old style companies where employees have a say in the direction of the company, have invested in it and feel like a real part of a family?

Or unionize. You are tech people. You can setup setup your own loomio (or whatever decision making software exists these days) server and start making decisions today. Be the change you want to see.

Re: Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities

#136

Post by egypturnash »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #68
rosywoozlechan wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't benefit top earners to share salary information. If I'm making more money than everyone else and the consequences of sharing salaries is equity than it is in my rational self-interest to keep my salary hidden because I'm unlikely to get any kind of raise until equity is achieved whereas I may continue to get raises otherwise. You know what those top earners are going to do then? Quit. And then you end up w…

"It doesn't benefit top earners to share salary information. If I'm making more money than everyone else and the consequences of sharing salaries is equity " And we all are top earners, right? Statistics tell me most of us aren't. The consequence of sharing salaries is not equity but people being able to negotiate better so most likely average salaries will go up. CEO salaries have been public for a while now and I h…

90% of the comments I see on HN about salary negotiation leave me convinced that most of the people here think they are top earners.

Re: Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities

#137

Post by ggggtez »

IgorPartola wrote: post #5

Whenever the topic of sharing salary information comes up I always bring up the algorithm for figuring out the average salary for a group of people without anyone learning anyone else’s exact salary: Say you have 10 people sitting at a round table. Person 1 picks up a piece of paper and on it writes a sum of their salary + randInt(100_000, 10_000_000) remembering what the initial random number was. We can call this n…

This method is not a safe solution. There are many flaws:

For example, if person 3 and person 5 collaborate, they can find out the salary of person 4.

Re: Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities

#138

Post by lotsofpulp »

overgard wrote: post #132

At risk of sounding like a mercenary, in my experience the only realistic way to get paid your market value is to be on the market. It's just way easier to get a pay bump by switching jobs. If you wait for your employer to give you a raise, they usually will drag their feet for as long as possible and then give you something disappointing. One consequence of this is, in companies that are willing to do it, it can be…

>The cost of recruiting and interviewing candidates, not to mention training new hires, is huge.

Clearly it's not more than the cost of providing higher pay. Most people would rather not switch jobs as there is considerable risk involved if you're not performing labor that results in very profitable sales.

People would rather work with the devil they know than the devil they don't, so unless they're in upwardly mobile careers such as engineering, law, finance, or medicine, they probably don't have many good options.

Re: Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities

#139

Post by egypturnash »

I am all for this. I have always said that if I end up running something, I will have a sheet posted in the office that has everyone's salaries (or at least the salaries of everyone willing to share that info) along with their job title.

This probably hints at why I am unlikely to actually end up running anything, but in the off chance lightning strikes...

Re: Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities

#140

Post by tyrust »

Mandatum wrote: post #128
masayune wrote: post #116

Back when I worked there, they had something called "Blizzard Bucks" to "supplement" your salary. Basically "Blizzard Bucks" was Monopoly money we could use to buy their microtransactions and WoW game-time. In reality, you made approx. $30-40k sans OT, but they would always calculate your "salary" at $50-60k because of all the "Blizzard Bucks" and claim your salary was industry best. The best part was, and they would…

That is possibly the most exploitative form of compensation I've heard of in the Western world.

I'd rank service workers' tips counting towards their minimum wage a worse practice.
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