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Survey of workers’ views on salary transparency

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Re: Survey of workers’ views on salary transparency

#51

Post by pmontra »

Salary is a function of so many things. Random stuff from my experience:

- People hired when the company needs a lot of new staff at once are paid more than people hired to do same job in normal times. Basic demand/offer law.

- Somebody will negotiate more cash vs less stock options.

- I was able to get some extra money many years ago because for that new job I had to commute from a longer distance (10 minutes walking vs 1 hour metro or car). Extra costs -> extra money.

- Some people have pay rises because of what they did (deserved or undeserved, I won't get into that.)

Re: Survey of workers’ views on salary transparency

#52

Post by notimetorelax »

wslh wrote: post #39
phpisthebest wrote: post #12

I once had employer tell me that because I was single with no kids I did not "need" as much income as a co-worker with multiple kids... I noped out of that employment quickly

I had this discussion as a boss and in favor of offering extra benefits with someone with kids with the same role and experience of someone without them. Interesting to discuss it further here in HN. I argue that at the same professional level it is not the same to have a full family that being solo.

You may not know if a single person is supporting a relative or a grandma with cancer. Nor should you. It’s a flawed argument and pay should be for performance. This doesn’t meant that there shouldn’t be accommodations to everyone’s needs. But those are not tied to pay.

Re: Survey of workers’ views on salary transparency

#53

Post by msrenee »

tomalpha wrote: post #3

It doesn't inspire much faith in article's author when its title is: 1 in 20 workers will quit if transparency laws reveal they are paid less than co-workers and that is expanded lower down to be: 4% will quit if revealed co-workers earn more money Maybe it's all otherwise true and accurate, but it raises a warning flag for me about how good their methodology might be.

Is it the people who ran the study claiming 1 in 20 is 4% or the person who wrote the article.

Either way, it's a heck of a rounding error.

Re: Survey of workers’ views on salary transparency

#54

Post by ClumsyPilot »

medo-bear wrote: post #41
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other was, working as little as possible, because you got paid the same, no matter what. Source: lived in a socialist country

also owned own home https://i.redd.it/vj4m7grzdyr41.png

Will someone please think of the landlords?

Re: Survey of workers’ views on salary transparency

#55

Post by boole1854 »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #33

I always wonder if the world would be a better or worse place if all salaries where forced to be made public by law. Lots of pros and cons, but it would be very interesting.

Many government and academic institutions do in fact publicly publish all salaries, so the question of what the effect would be is not entirely theoretical.

Here's one place that aggregates this data: https://www.openthebooks.com/ https://www.openthebooks.com/virginia-state-employees/

Re: Survey of workers’ views on salary transparency

#56

Post by ClumsyPilot »

porphyra wrote: post #32
teekert wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" [0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_abi...

For that to work, you first need an abundance of goods produced by an ideal communist society, which doesn't exist.

The idea that our society is purely a meritocracy is a myth that does not hold up to thw most rudamentary economic analysis.

Re: Survey of workers’ views on salary transparency

#57

Post by lqet »

phpisthebest wrote: post #12

I once had employer tell me that because I was single with no kids I did not "need" as much income as a co-worker with multiple kids... I noped out of that employment quickly

In Germany, public officials ("Beamte") are paid a bonus depending on (a) their marital status, (b) the number of kids they have and (c) whether their spouse is also a public official (you get less then to avoid receiving the children bonus 2 times).

This has multiple reason: one feels a bit ancient as the states basically want their "Beamte" to live in an "orderly" family situation and thus encourage marriage and children.

However, AFAIK, a major reason is to counter a disadvantage "Beamte" have regarding health care insurance. For historical reasons, they are not part of the public welfare system (or rather, they are in a different, older one). The state pays half of their medical expenses (if you are part of the public health care system as a "normal" employee, your employer pays half of the health care insurance). To cover the remaining 50%, Beamte need a private health care insurance. In the public health care system, your children and non-working spouse can be added to your health care insurance for free. With a private insurance, that is not possible - you have to pay for an additional insurance for each kid, and your spouse if he/she is not working.

There is a calculator for the federal level here: https://oeffentlicher-dienst.info/c/t/rechner/beamte/bund?id...

Re: Survey of workers’ views on salary transparency

#58

Post by lotsofpulp »

Varqu wrote: post #27

This is also the problem when asking companies to publish salary brackets: A lot of them have teams in which people with almost identical profile have a 30% or higher salary difference.

Who is that a problem for? People and businesses negotiate prices all the time. No one is forcing anyone to be paid the same. If the people have an offer to get paid more elsewhere, they should change jobs.

Re: Survey of workers’ views on salary transparency

#59

Post by lbreakjai »

wslh wrote: post #39
phpisthebest wrote: post #12

I once had employer tell me that because I was single with no kids I did not "need" as much income as a co-worker with multiple kids... I noped out of that employment quickly

I had this discussion as a boss and in favor of offering extra benefits with someone with kids with the same role and experience of someone without them. Interesting to discuss it further here in HN. I argue that at the same professional level it is not the same to have a full family that being solo.

I'm exchanging my work for money, and for equal work I'd expect equal money. I'm saying this as a parent.

Are you also willing to pay more for someone living alone and that therefore can't split the costs with a significant other?

Re: Survey of workers’ views on salary transparency

#60

Post by ClumsyPilot »

lr wrote: post #43

250,000 people (includes student employees) at the university of California can just go online and look up their co-worker’s salary, for the past 10 years! Yet, it doesn’t cause problems. In fact, salaries are public for all government workers in California (UC just makes it very easy to look someone up). The entire country of Finland posts all salaries of the entire population online! The angst over these laws is, I…

The definition of free market is that information is avaliable.

I dont understand how people that declare they believe in free market, want information to be hidden and the market to be less free.

Additionally most of them are employees.

It should be obvious that freely knowing salaries will improve the employee's ability to negotiate the wage they deserve.

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