5 ms·

What if the person to fight in my corner is me? Unions drag everyone's wages to an average. Poor performers get paid more, top performers get paid less. No than

• KaiserPro 6y ago
  ok, but hear me out on this: how do you know you are earning as much as you should? I mean if we take facebook as an example, you can't negotiate pay. You're slapped on a scale and thats it. You might be able to up your share offer, but actual pay is fixed on a scale. Which is the same as what it would be if it was unionised. Also, you have chosen two professions that are run by public organisations, so pay is always going to be low[1] However in other countries, teachers unions are very effective at settling compensation. (The UK for example has reasonably well paid teachers) I think the problem is that you seem to be labouring under the pretence that you are special, and earn a specially high wage. Statistics say that in practice your probably earning close to median for tech. Make of that what you will... [1] well yes and no, depending on country, but lets assume the USA
  • 0xy 6y ago
    >I mean if we take facebook as an example, you can't negotiate pay Stocks basically are pay, because anyone who doesn't immediately sell them as they vest is fiscally irresponsible. >Which is the same as what it would be if it was unionised Firstly, no. The scale is wide and you are placed somewhere between the low and high points of the scale for your level. Not every L5 engineer earns the same thing. Secondly, total compensation is what matters. >Also, you have chosen two professions that are run by public organisations, so pay is always going to be low Tech contractors for public organisations in my area are paid more or less market rate. >However in other countries, teachers unions are very effective at settling compensation Not for top performers, they are paid the same as low performers. >The UK for example has reasonably well paid teachers If you are the best teacher in the country, you get severely underpaid. >Statistics say that in practice your probably earning close to median for tech I earn 110% more than the median wage for my particular level, according to Glassdoor/Levels/etc. I don't think I'm special, but I think I perform highly and are paid in kind for that. Given I'm capable of analysing my own impact, it's pretty clear I'm paid a fraction of the value I provide to the company too.
    • hef19898 6y ago
      Regarding stock units, if I had sold my AMZN RSUs as soon as they vested, I would have missed out by a lot of pay.
      • 0xy 6y ago
        History is full of rock solid tech giants who have faltered. Amazon isn't invincible and cannot climb forever. In fact, they're under more competition than ever before. Just because this worked for you doesn't mean it's a good strategy at every company every time.
        • hef19898 6y ago
          My view of RSUs was always to see them as a bonus, money that is nice to have but that I don't need. If I can't live my life with the base pay, I don't tke the job. Sure, AMZN exploded over the last years, no idea why so. I had doubts i would ever go above 1k, not to speak about approaching 3k.
    • eeZah7Ux 6y ago
      > Stocks basically are pay, because anyone who doesn't immediately sell them as they vest is fiscally irresponsible. citation needed
      • kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago
        Unless their financial calculus led them to conclude that they needed to buy exactly that much stock of their company as they received as stock compensation, they should be selling and redistributing as they see fit.
      • 0xy 6y ago
        There are very few companies who can consistently outperform index funds. Of course there are exceptions, but there aren't many and I'd wager they won't be forever.
    • gdulli 6y ago
• rightbyte 6y ago
  To me it seems "top performers" are not really recognized and job jumpers are the ones that are paid more.
  • jodrellblank 6y ago
    To me it seems like the scene in Game of Thrones: "Power is a curious thing. Three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man. Between them stands a common sellsword. Each great man bids the sellsword kill the other two. Who lives, who dies? Power resides where men believe it resides. It’s a trick. A shadow on the wall." Value is what someone will pay, the highest salaries go to those who can get them.
  • 0xy 6y ago
    If a company isn't meeting your salary expectations then leaving for a better offer is itself a negotiating tactic in a way.
    • eeZah7Ux 6y ago
      ...which only proves the point that people are not rewarded for their skills and efforts. Instead: being good at doing interviews including "looking the part", being strong negotiators, changing jobs often.
      • notnap 6y ago
        Free Society doesn’t benefit much from the hammer that does the nails the best of the best. Society benefits more from the good hammer that finds the right nails to handle. Thus, rewards the latter behaviour more
        • rightbyte 6y ago
          Sure changing job is good for everyone given that you have the wrong programmer on the wrong post. Likewise a OK programmer at their present job is worth maybe half a year to 2 year in salary in company or narrow product specific knowledge, for the company. The way changing company gives raises doesn't make sense for the company losing an employee. The employee is worth more for the prior employer than the new. And the new employer's present employees are worth more than the new.
• jodrellblank 6y ago
  > "Poor performers get paid more, top performers get paid less. No thanks, I can negotiate for myself." The two retorts to this are: 1) it's selfish arguing. "Fuck you got mine" style, dismisses what happens to everyone else as long as you're OK. Which may be fine for you, but why should the rest of us agree that you being wealthier is the thing we all want? 2) You negotiating against the resources of a multi-million dollar company who can hire any legal or negotiating team of experts against you? Can you, really? > "Additionally unions protect incompetent employees, which I don't want." Unions don't have to protect incompetent employees, but they can demand that the employee be proved incompetent and not falsely accused of incompetence and sacked without "trial" - which could happen to you. Unions protect exploited, abused, unfairly treated employees too, which you might become one day. > "I want to negotiate my own pay and benefits, and it's worked out excellent for me. A union only serves to harm my interests." Voting sure is worse than having me as dictator, isn't it? Democracy only serves to harm my interests. Surely you will agree that's a good reason for FaceBook to suppress talk of Democracy and voting in nation-wide FaceBook chat?
  • 0xy 6y ago
    >dismisses what happens to everyone else as long as you're OK Not really, because it's not like tech low performers are in poverty. Tech salaries bottom out at $60-70k in most places in the US. $60k is far from poverty and far from nothing. >Which may be fine for you, but why should the rest of us agree that you being wealthier is the thing we all want? Well, the collective in this case has already agreed that I should be paid the market rate that I successfully negotiate. Unionisation is extremely unpopular in tech. >You negotiating against the resources of a multi-million dollar company who can hire any legal or negotiating team of experts against you Negotiating isn't 1:1. If you are an effective negotiator and perform well then you're usually negotiating multiple offers and using them as leverage against each other. In reality, it's less "David vs Goliath" and more like "Goliath vs Goliath vs Goliath". If a company refuses to meet my expectations, I move on. No harm done. >Unions protect exploited, abused, unfairly treated employees too, which you might become one day I willingly give up those rights. No, really. My current employer can terminate my contract for any reason with minimal notice required. I don't really care, because I know they won't do that as long as I continue to deliver value. In return for those contract stipulations, I am paid more. But you seem to gloss over the inconvenient facts about police and teachers unions. In fact, teachers unions regularly protect sexual predators. [1] Similarly, police unions regularly protect officers who commit heinous abuses of power. >Democracy only serves to harm my interests Maybe I just think a bloated organisation that protects incompetent employees shouldn't be the moderator of so-called "democracy". If I have a problem within an organisation, I make my thoughts clearly heard with management. If management refuses to listen and the issue is serious enough, I leave. For example, I once worked for an undisclosed company who refused to allocate resources to fix security issues impacting our customer's privacy. I pushed the issue as high as it would go in the chain of command and left when it was clear they refused to do anything. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390443437504577547313612049308 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390443437504577547...
• hef19898 6y ago
  Obviously, I have no idea how unions work in the US. But there was the example of Dwayne Johnson, earning 90 Million and being a union member. The collective bargaining I am used to, has the effect in some cases of maybe overpaying certain individuals. IMHO that always happens. It doesn't drag salaries anywhere but up so. And there is a cap on salary levels and job levels being covered by unions collective bargaining. Above these levels, it is what you negotiate with your employer.
  • 0xy 6y ago
    >Above these levels, it is what you negotiate with your employer Teachers cannot negotiate salary, thanks to unions. The best teacher in America is paid the same as the worst teacher.
    • kaybe 6y ago
      How do you reliably measure teacher quality?
      • jedieaston 6y ago
        The same way you measure anybody else: performance reviews, which are usually executed around here by an administrator or 2 coming to observe a class every semester. Coupled with standardized tests as a secondary measurement, it's pretty easy to tell who's good at their job.
        • Karunamon 6y ago
          The problem is that developers and teachers are not assembly line workers, and any performance measurement metric you come up with will be optimized for with poor results. Grade teachers on their students' test scores? Okay, now you have teachers spending inordinate amounts of time on overfitting the curriculum to the local standardized testing requirements and less time actually ensuring their students are educated. Grade developers on their lines of code or number of features shipped? Be prepared for needlessly verbose code and buggy garbage shipped out to meet the metric. Throw these objective criterion out the window in favor of a more judgment-based approach? Be prepared for lawsuits when the mistake is eventually made.
• jasonlotito 6y ago
  Seems to me like teachers and police like their unions. As for the tech industry, remember, your already getting paid less because of companies like Apple and Adobe who had the non-poaching agreement. This stifled salaries for everyone involved. Unions are so bad, but companies will collectively bargain if they can.