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A federal mandate on pay transparency would put an end to all of the unequal pay issues once and for all. What’s the downside?
by endisneigh 5y ago
A federal mandate on pay transparency would put an end to all of the unequal pay issues once and for all. What’s the downside?
- alfl 5y agoHow much money do you make?
- duxup 5y agoWould what someone claims online make any difference to you?
- s1artibartfast 5y agoThe point is to drive home how they might feel about publicity announcing and verifying their income for the world to see.
- endisneigh 5y agoPay transparency does not necessarily mean a specific individual is tied with a specific amount of money.
- sib 5y agoYes, but in many cases it does (not-huge companies with enough data on role, experience, location to disambiguate)...
- Spivak 5y agoThis is such a stupid retort. I'm totally fine with my salary being public iff everyone's salary is public.
- stackedinserter 5y agoStart from yourself.
- ThePadawan 5y agoI would answer this, but it would give my potential next employer the opportunity to lowball me. This would not be the case if the pay transparency that parent describes were already a thing, because I would have the same ability to check the salaries of that company. But without that mandate happening, whoever moves first loses. That's why salary transparency should be mandated, because otherwise no one has any motivation to move, so no one will.
- spaniard89277 5y agoIDK in your country, in mine the downside was that we all knew such pay gap is mostly non-existant, so they mandated a pay gap law but data is locked under trade unions gatekeeping.
- neither_color 5y agoOf course it doesn't exist, because if it did any CEO could say "let's hire women instead of men and save 25%"
- spaniard89277 5y agoIn my country most salaries are mandated with trade-union agreements, even variable compensations. Only very specific and niche cases behave outside that framework. If any trade union or person believed that there was a real pay gap in any company, they could sue and win if true. Even way before current law. With the new law, it's even easier, as they get access to all the microdata basically. But nothing lands on courts yet.
- cool_dude85 5y agoBy this logic, racial and gender pay gaps should never have existed. Why didn't any visionary CEO in America hire blacks instead of whites in 1950 and save 50% on labor?
- giantg2 5y agoBecause they were also kept out of the schools that would give them the qualifications to work those jobs. No cost savings if your engineer or accountant was never trained. So companies hired them for the menial jobs which paid less universally.
- cool_dude85 5y agoNo black engineers or accountants in 1950? Whats the pay gap between you and a knowledgeable employee?
- disposablex 5y agoCertainly depends on if where you fall in the system; are you taking advantage of getting paid more than those around you with no transparency or could you benefit from transparency because you're lacking information?
- simion314 5y agoThe self proclaimed guys that are at the same time 10X devs and 10x negociaters think that all the simpletons will be envious and hate on them. It could be that some of the double 10x guys are not paid 10x times as "simpletons" (most of the time this ones are stuck to cleanup the 10x devs garbage output)
- alpha_squared 5y agoWhile I agree with this perspective, I also feel like there's a lot of cultural baggage around this that makes a transition it a hard sell for the time being.
- tolbish 5y agoPaycheck transparency, paycheck+stock option transparency, or transparency of all benefits? Didn't Steve Jobs have a salary of $1?
- s1artibartfast 5y agoPrivacy would be one downside. I'm not sure I want my friends, acquaintances, home contractors, ect knowing how much I make.
- endisneigh 5y agoPay transparency doesn't necessarily mean you're personally identifiable. That aside, what are the downsides?
- s1artibartfast 5y agoNot necessarily, but it is probably the most common way it has been implemented in the US, and a potential downside depending on implementation. Another downside is that it could release competitive information from private companies.
- endisneigh 5y agoSure, and the upside is a strengthened position as a prospective employee. As an employee or prospective employee to a new organization, what's the downside?
- s1artibartfast 5y agoIf you are currently underpaid, it could reduce you leverage with the prospective employer. I have 2Xed my pay because a new employer didn't know my current rate.
- endisneigh 5y agoThey still wouldn't know your rate. As I mentioned before, pay transparency isn't necessarily personally identifiable. Hypothetically you could've 4X'd your rate. Maybe your 2X rate is actually a lowball. Who's to say?
- 5y ago
- ipnon 5y agoFederal mandates are non-starters politically in America, for better or for worse, especially in regards to speech and privacy. There is a massive cohort of Americans who vehemently oppose the government mandating what they must publicly share about themselves. This doesn't seem feasible.
- endisneigh 5y agoI don't understand the privacy rebuttals. Pay transparency doesn't mean your personal salary is identifiable.
- stagger87 5y agoMaybe you should have specified that. Even with that said, I work at a small enough company where anonymous salaries could still easily be associated with an individual, and I would still not like that, for privacy reasons.
- endisneigh 5y agoSpecified what? Pay transparency has never meant personally identifiable salaries.
- giantg2 5y agoIt depends on the size and diversity of the company. If your company size is small and they list 10 tech leads and only one has 20 years experience, or a masters, or is female, then it's pretty easy to work that back to them. They've shown similar things for anonymous medical records not being so anonymous. So larger populations and smaller number of attributes would probably make it better, but not foolproof.
- endisneigh 5y agoNo matter what the company will know everyone's salaries. The question is mainly whether you want to be ignorant, or not. Usually these things (at least with the government) don't list experience, or educational attainment.
- SamReidHughes 5y agoThe downside is that it's a tyrannical intrusion into private business.
- taurath 5y agoPrivate business operates under the umbrella of government regulations and if they didn’t you and I would have a much worse life.
- SamReidHughes 5y agoTry an argument that's structurally capable of distinguishing between good and bad ideas.
- jedberg 5y agoI agree it should be done, but the main downside is that a single pay number lacks a lot of nuance. At companies with open pay policies, a lot of times you will see one person complaining that another person is making more than them, and then a long meeting has to take place where all the special skills of that other person are explained. Having to do that repeatedly would get onerous. Also, it's bad for small business owners, because then the large businesses could see what they are paying and much more easily poach employees. Edit: To clarify, I'm absolutely in favor of pay transparency laws. But any time you make a government policy, there are always winners and losers. It's always a balance between how much you're harming the losers and who they are. In this case, the losers would be the businesses and their owners, which is all that I'm pointing out. But I'd say that the employees should be the winners here, and I say this as a business owner myself.
- endisneigh 5y ago> Also, it's bad for small business owners, because then the large businesses could see what they are paying and much more easily poach employees. I don't follow - to rephrase what you're saying, it's bad for small business owners because their (underpaid) employees will be paid more by (larger) other businesses? Sounds like the employees of said businesses will overwhelming benefit if what you're saying is true.
- jedberg 5y agoAbsolutely. It would be great for the employees, just not the businesses.
- endisneigh 5y agoAh, I misunderstood - I thought you were arguing that was a downside for an employee. Apologies.
- short_sells_poo 5y ago> Also, it's bad for small business owners, because then the large businesses could see what they are paying and much more easily poach employees. That sounds a bit like (apologies for the strawman): "small business needs to be able to exploit employees to survive." If small business can't survive without that, perhaps the problem lies elsewhere?
- baskire 5y agoMany bay area tech companies decided to push Diversity representation as a top issue. Many achieved results by lowering the bar for diverse candidates to get entry level positions. 3 years later, those same diversity candidates start to notice that on AVERAGE their diversity-segment gets paid less on average that white/asian males. BUT what the statistics show is that the bar for white/asian males happened to be higher, because the diversity initiatives prevented them from being accepted for lower-tier jobs...the same jobs the company skewed towards diverse candidates. As such, they also were paid more on average, not due to discrimination but because their group was discriminated in getting the lower-paying jobs in the company.
- sinsterizme 5y agoI really would not want this. I already compare myself to my peers and feel the pressure enough. I don't want to have the salary figures as an extra metric to obsess about. I think it would lead to a lot of resentment and be generally unproductive
- endisneigh 5y agoI'm sorry, but you'd rather be ignorant to potential pay discrepancies not in your favor because you might just feel bad? If you were the best person on your team and were being paid the least you wouldn't want to know? I honestly don't understand your view.
- taurath 5y agoPeople, to the great benefit of companies, tend to actually negotiate up front and then not want to think about money as long as they consider it “enough” for their lifestyle, at least not wanting to revisit it on a weekly or monthly basis. It allows people to fool themselves that they do what they do for something other than money, and or they’re afraid of any conflict in the workplace (and thereby instability).
- heavyset_go 5y agoThen don't look at them.
- paulddraper 5y ago> A federal mandate on pay transparency would put an end to all of the unequal pay issues once and for all. Were you...being serious?
- raxxorrax 5y agoI wouldn't want everyone to know my income. Have you thought about all repercussions of that transparency?