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Ask HN: How to address female coworkers getting paid less

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Re: Ask HN: How to address female coworkers getting paid less

#51

Post by Bahamut »

Regnad wrote: post #44
Bahamut wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People need to be ok with talking about it, but at the same time, it still should ultimately be each person's choice to talk about it. [$67/hr, 2 years of experience, senior frontend engineer, Palo Alto]

Not to pry, but is this typical on the West Coast or are you contracting/including bonus in your hourly? I think I do pretty well for my age but you're killing it. [$46/hr, 5 years of experience, Software Engineer, Boston]

I did not include a signing bonus or equity in that number - I am probably an unusual case admittedly due to my speed of learning and speed of execution

Re: Ask HN: How to address female coworkers getting paid less

#52

Post by R_Edward »

sirwolfgang wrote: post #10

This is fundamentally one of the biggest cultural changes we have to make. You have to be ok with talking about your personal earning. In a lot of places talking about earnings is more taboo then talking about sex, and sex is generally taboo. Company culture of not talking about earnings only helps the company. It allows them to pay lowest market value for anyone, under the (often true) hopes that they don't know the…

On my first day at one job, HR called me into a conference room to review my compensation package and everything. The HR rep wrote a number on a Post-It and handed it to me, saying, "This is your salary. Here at BigCo we hold salary in confidence between you and the company. In other words, please do not discuss this number with any of your co-workers." I responded, "Don't worry, ma'am. I'm just as ashamed of that small number as you are." [low 6 figures, 28 years experience, Upper Midwest]

Re: Ask HN: How to address female coworkers getting paid less

#53

Post by SEJeff »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #19
sirwolfgang wrote: post #10

This is fundamentally one of the biggest cultural changes we have to make. You have to be ok with talking about your personal earning. In a lot of places talking about earnings is more taboo then talking about sex, and sex is generally taboo. Company culture of not talking about earnings only helps the company. It allows them to pay lowest market value for anyone, under the (often true) hopes that they don't know the…

Agreed 100%. I find the "don't talk about it" culture surrounding pay in companies pretty disgraceful. In a more civilised future, I'm pretty confident all pay will be totally open and public, and a swathe of problems will be solved as a result. Sure, there will be an awkward transition period, but progress is usually challenging. [38K, ~15years experience, tiny non-technical startup in London]

British Pounds or USD? If most of the people are talking in USD, then you're making roughly 76k USD.

Re: Ask HN: How to address female coworkers getting paid less

#55

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

orbifold wrote: post #40

One sort of rational explanation for a lower wage is that females might get pregnant and need leave for that, although that probably does not justify the difference (I haven't done the calculations). That is also why insurance prices offered to females / males are often different insofar the law allows it.

That's an outrageous reason to discriminate against someone. A man also might take leave after their child is born. A woman might not get pregnant. Someone might be predisposed to sickness, but you still wouldn't be justified in using your crystal ball and tarot cards in order to pay them a lower wage.

Re: Ask HN: How to address female coworkers getting paid less

#56

Post by agilebyte »

laurenbee wrote: post #50
agilebyte wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Company culture of not talking about earnings helps me not feeling bad if I were to find out that my colleague who does the same job is paid more, or be on the reverse end. I'd rather not know. On the other hand, differences between different companies I can explain/comprehend/think are useful.

But what if knowing lets you make moves that improve your salary (if you are on the lower end) or encourage your coworkers to ask for a raise (if you are on the higher end)? I started out making 10% more than what I was initially offered since I knew what coworkers with similar experience made and asked for that amount. And I know what coworkers with much more experience (10+ years to my 2 years) make, so I can gauge…

Congratulations. Salary negotiations is not an area I am good at, and I guess I don't need a constant reminder about that wondering what if because the benefits a job gives us is a complex issue.

Re: Ask HN: How to address female coworkers getting paid less

#57

Post by jebus989 »

SEJeff wrote: post #53
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed 100%. I find the "don't talk about it" culture surrounding pay in companies pretty disgraceful. In a more civilised future, I'm pretty confident all pay will be totally open and public, and a swathe of problems will be solved as a result. Sure, there will be an awkward transition period, but progress is usually challenging. [38K, ~15years experience, tiny non-technical startup in London]

British Pounds or USD? If most of the people are talking in USD, then you're making roughly 76k USD.

Less roughly 38k GBP ~= 61k USD. It's been a good half-decade since it was two dollars to the pound.

Re: Ask HN: How to address female coworkers getting paid less

#58

Post by waps »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #55
orbifold wrote: post #40

One sort of rational explanation for a lower wage is that females might get pregnant and need leave for that, although that probably does not justify the difference (I haven't done the calculations). That is also why insurance prices offered to females / males are often different insofar the law allows it.

That's an outrageous reason to discriminate against someone. A man also might take leave after their child is born. A woman might not get pregnant. Someone might be predisposed to sickness, but you still wouldn't be justified in using your crystal ball and tarot cards in order to pay them a lower wage.

Don't brush your teeth for a week, drink a diet coke immediately followed by a coffee right before the interview. This will give you the appearance of someone with bad teeth (and it is really bad for your teeth. Take something for the smell. Don't make a habit out of it).

Then you will know whether there is discrimination based on medical conditions or not.

We all know the outcome of this.

The same applies to appearing sick otherwise. I have a particularly white skin. Under the wrong light it can even appear a little gray. Interviews in sunlight go significantly better than under UV light, and I'm pretty sure it's-because they think I'll be ill soon.

Management, everywhere I've ever worked was a band of old boys, playing social poker with eachother. Even the bosses I've had that were minority themselves discriminate. And they were minority only in genes, for example one was a "Turk" ... A christian, grew up in Boston. But yes he's tall and darker and has that broad face. Enjoys football. Discriminates based on religion (granted, given what muslims are doing to Christians in Turkey, I understand. Especially after him showing me some articles concerning the still existing Turkish Armenian Christians)

But it's not like other bosses were different. The problem is the type of person that tends to fill middle management, nothing else.

Since I've started working the main difference is that they lie about it really hard these days.

Re: Ask HN: How to address female coworkers getting paid less

#59

Post by bowlich »

joshyeager wrote: post #18
sirwolfgang wrote: post #10

This is fundamentally one of the biggest cultural changes we have to make. You have to be ok with talking about your personal earning. In a lot of places talking about earnings is more taboo then talking about sex, and sex is generally taboo. Company culture of not talking about earnings only helps the company. It allows them to pay lowest market value for anyone, under the (often true) hopes that they don't know the…

The big reason for the taboo against talking about income is jealousy. Almost every job feels harder than it looks, and almost everyone feels more skilled at their work than they look. So if you tell someone your salary, your job probably feels more difficult to you than it looks to them, and you probably feel more productive than they think you are. If you make the same or more than they do, there is a very high ris…

I started my career in the public sector where salary is published and set in stone before you even apply for a position. Everyone knows everyone's pay grade. I never once saw any kind of jealousy about someone making more than someone else for doing the same job title.

This has two effects (1) Saves me a lot of time on the negotiation front. If the announcement doesn't pay what you want, don't apply to it. Saves me and the hiring manager a lot of wasted time if I were to apply to a post thinking I'll get paid $X when it will really pay $Y. And (2) Since it's all public anyway, everyone knows that if you want to make $X then you need to train into position Y and you have a pretty concrete list of knowledge/skills that you can hack away on to achieve that. None of this blind guess work.

Re: Ask HN: How to address female coworkers getting paid less

#60

Post by orbifold »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #55
orbifold wrote: post #40

One sort of rational explanation for a lower wage is that females might get pregnant and need leave for that, although that probably does not justify the difference (I haven't done the calculations). That is also why insurance prices offered to females / males are often different insofar the law allows it.

That's an outrageous reason to discriminate against someone. A man also might take leave after their child is born. A woman might not get pregnant. Someone might be predisposed to sickness, but you still wouldn't be justified in using your crystal ball and tarot cards in order to pay them a lower wage.

This is a matter of statistics and risk evaluation, it is a fact that health insurance companies take the risk of pregnancy into account when calculating the insurance premium, whether you like it or not. In the same way there is a risk to the employer and in principle it is fairly easy to assign a cost to it, too. For example, assume an employee makes 40k a year and will take 3 years off during her work life, due to pregnancy (not uncommon in Europe and often with almost full compensation). Assume she works 40 years, then the cost per year is 3k, so she should actually be compensated with ~37k per year. This is the most naive calculation, if you knew statistics on how many men vs. women take paid leave because of children and so on you can of course come up with a much better cost model.

If you assume that a company acts rationally there is no reason for arbitrary discrimination, but every reason to adjust wages according to possible costs. I'm sure in the case of wage inequality, this is not the main reason however.

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