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> People should be insisting on raises at least in line with inflation To be blunt, that really is SV cuckoo-land thinking. In 22 years of employment, 18 in I

> People should be insisting on raises at least in line with inflation To be blunt, that really is SV cuckoo-land thinking. In 22 years of employment, 18 in IT with Fortune 100s, I have never had a job in which that was possible. Why would a company voluntarily increase its personnel costs by the rate of inflation?

aninhumer 9y ago
>Why would a company voluntarily increase its personnel costs by the rate of inflation? Because you have a society where not doing so would be rightly recognised as a defacto wage cut, and considered outrageous by your employees. This is generally the case in Europe, and I'm arguing that this not being the case in the US is exactly the problem. Also FWIW, I don't think tech companies are remotely representative. It's an industry with high employee turnover, and where people are expected to argue for their own raises. Nonetheless, I work in tech, and I got an inflation based salary bump last year, which was applied in addition to a performance based raise, and I'm expecting one this year as well. But then, I don't work in the US.
eli_gottlieb 9y ago
Because you unionized, because you pressured the state to maintain full-employment policies, because the welfare state helped you bargain harder against your exploiters... You know, because you actually fought for your interests instead of accepting your lot as a constantly-devalued cost center.
fapjacks 9y ago
Hey, dingaling, you really should bring that up to your employer. In about the same number of years in the same industry, I've gotten salary bumps to cover inflation in most years I've asked for one.
greglindahl 9y ago
Before I moved to SV, I saw a lot of companies that gave COLAs. You might go easy on the insults, in addition to not generalizing from your personal observations to an entire country's economy.

aninhumer 9y ago

>Why would a company voluntarily increase its personnel costs by the rate of inflation? Because you have a society where not doing so would be rightly recognised as a defacto wage cut, and considered outrageous by your employees. This is generally the case in Europe, and I'm arguing that this not being the case in the US is exactly the problem. Also FWIW, I don't think tech companies are remotely representative. It's an industry with high employee turnover, and where people are expected to argue for their own raises. Nonetheless, I work in tech, and I got an inflation based salary bump last year, which was applied in addition to a performance based raise, and I'm expecting one this year as well. But then, I don't work in the US.

eli_gottlieb 9y ago

Because you unionized, because you pressured the state to maintain full-employment policies, because the welfare state helped you bargain harder against your exploiters... You know, because you actually fought for your interests instead of accepting your lot as a constantly-devalued cost center.

fapjacks 9y ago

Hey, dingaling, you really should bring that up to your employer. In about the same number of years in the same industry, I've gotten salary bumps to cover inflation in most years I've asked for one.

greglindahl 9y ago

Before I moved to SV, I saw a lot of companies that gave COLAs. You might go easy on the insults, in addition to not generalizing from your personal observations to an entire country's economy.