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Your employer doesn't want you to discuss pay with your fellow workers, because if you did you would realize how badly you are being ripped off. This is why in

Your employer doesn't want you to discuss pay with your fellow workers, because if you did you would realize how badly you are being ripped off. This is why in many countries pay transparency is protected by law. The Wall Street Journal will naturally tell you otherwise, because they are your enemy.

booleandilemma 5y ago
Can confirm. We once found out a lazy developer was getting paid almost twice what me and others on my team were, for who knows what reason. It made everyone feel like shit.
- masterof0 5y ago
  That's pretty much your fault, you go to your manager and negotiate better compensation, or leave. That have happened to me as well, and I left, never looked back. If you have 7 kids, 2 mortgages, etc... and can't afford to leave, then, maybe, that's why your employer is paying you less, because they have leverage on you. My aim is not to feel bad about somebody else's salary being higher than mine, I always aim to get as much as possible. Also,it seems the "lazy" developer, is not that lazy, as he/she/{x} at least can negotiate better compensation.
- danaris 5y ago
  The reasonable response to that is not "so we shouldn't let anyone find out what other people are making." It's "so we should go to management, demand to know why this crappy employee is making more, and if they don't have a very good answer and won't remedy the situation, consider leaving to some place where they reward excellence."
  - scaryclam 5y ago
    Devils advocate: why does it matter? Does them making more than you affect you in any way except emotionally? Are management going to say "Oh! Thanks for pointing it out, here you go, have a portion of their salary!", or are they just going to stop paying that employee as much?
    - avianlyric 5y ago
      Because you can use it to negotiate higher pay. I would say that’s a pretty significant affect on your life. Having more data in a negotiation is never a bad thing, having less always is.
      - scaryclam 5y ago
        You're making an assumption that they will negotiate your pay up, and not correct the under performers down, or do neither. More data is useful yes, but not on a per-employee basis. If the average for your position is higher, then yes, you can use that, but if it's an individual you're unlikely to get any difference for yourself, but could negatively impact them.
    - danaris 5y ago
      I believe my other comment here [0] answers that question. However, it also speaks to what is valued at that workplace. This matters not just for the "emotional" purposes, but for the implications it has for how the workplace will evolve over time due to those values. If you are someone for whom personal relationships, negotiating skills, and networking matter more than skill at the job, perhaps you think that a place where a lazy but well-connected developer is paid significantly more, and management refuses to change this, is ideal. If, on the other hand, you are someone for whom competence, productivity, and ability to do the job assigned is most important...then perhaps you will find that such a workplace will become less and less friendly to you over time. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28543162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28543162
- coldcode 5y ago
  Yet what if the best developer on the team was paid 3x more than everyone else, would you not also feel like shit? Unless everyone is paid exactly the same, then everyone feels like shit, which will motivate everyone to no longer care, and then your job will go away as your employer winds up as shit.
jay_kyburz 5y ago
I think its a persons own responsibility job to shop around and work out what the market value is for their labor. If a company tells you how much they pay, they are also telling every other company how much they will pay. It's basically colluding to keep wages low. You are worth what somebody will pay you.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  That is not colluding at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collusion Just because Walmart says on their website that they sell an item at $5, does not imply they have made an agreement with other sellers to also sell at $5. Nor does Carvana saying they will buy a car at $20k imply an agreement with other buyers to also buy at $20k.
  - nightski 5y ago
    No, they are deceitfully agreeing to be transparent in wages. The deception is that it's secretly to not allow people to leverage their offers or ask for more.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Where is the proof? Is the claim also that at an auction, when people bid on something and yell out a number, they are “secretly” telling other bidders to not bid more? Markets all over the world for thousands of years work on the basis of buyers telling sellers what they are willing to pay, and sellers telling buyers what they are willing to sell for. The whole process of a buyer and seller coming to an agreement on price is central to determining movements of supply and demand curves. If either buyers or sellers have sufficient control to dictate prices, then that is a separate issue of there not being sufficient buyers and sellers. But price transparency always results in a better allocation of resources and a healthier marketplace.
      - jay_kyburz 5y ago
        I think you are talking about "maxim" price though right. A car has a sticker price of 10K on the showroom floor, but nobody pays that. You negotiate down from there. I think it would fine for companies to advertise a sticker price for a job, but nobody expects to actually earn that, you negotiate up from there.
ASalazarMX 5y ago
To be fair, workers are not interchangeable pieces. If you're paid less, it's not necessarily because your employer is ripping you, there are many factors: performance, commitment, disposition, ambition, networking, etc. I don't think it's a good idea to dictate fixed salaries, but it's a great idea to make them transparent. It would be nice seeing how much the best employee earns, so you could use them as a role model. It would also be nice to see if the slacker brother of your boss is earning accordingly to his performance.
- pcurve 5y ago
  I tend to agree. No two candidates are exactly the same. Just like there's no pay transparency, there is no candidate transparency. With things I buy off the Web, I have option of returning if they were misrepresented or do not perform. With job applicants, you can't do that.
- sangnoir 5y ago
  > To be fair, workers are not interchangeable pieces. True - but job posts can be occupied by interchangeable pieces; some are overachievers, but all meet a minimum requirement. "Software Engineer I" in department A can be filled by any suitable candidate, and the budget maxes out at $XXX,000. If you're being paid less than this, the employer should tell you why (commitment,disposition, ambition, networking, etc).
- danaris 5y ago
  > To be fair, workers are not interchangeable pieces. This is absolutely true. However, in practice, while there are certainly workplaces where differences in pay are primarily due to differences in actual productive output and value to the team/company, there are also many, many workplaces where the differences in pay are entirely due to either better negotiation skills (which have absolutely nothing to do with the work in question), or how much the people deciding on the pay like the workers in question....including how much the workers in question toe the party line and are willing to sacrifice and abuse themselves for the sake of the company. In a case like this, what is responsible is to acknowledge the good-faith cases, and put rules in place (like pay transparency) to help fight against the bad-faith and abusive cases. "We should allow companies the freedom to continue to abuse their employees, because some companies instead use that freedom to reward good employees" is not a particularly compelling argument, at least to me.
oh_sigh 5y ago
Isn't it more likely that some people would realize they are being ripped off, and some people would realize they're getting paid more than their peers?
notyourday 5y ago
> Your employer doesn't want you to discuss pay with your fellow workers, because if you did you would realize how badly you are being ripped off. Strangely, the US tends to pay more than any other country for the work, which is why those who live in other countries would rather move to the US and its non-transparent pay system. Pay transparency creates commodization of jobs which will only lead to the pay dropping rather than rising. Opaque pricing is great for sellers and the sellers in every market. In the job market the sellers are employees, not employers.
- nathan11 5y ago
  This assumes that the market is actually opaque for both parties. The information asymmetry between employer and employee regarding wages is pretty well documented. There are other pressures on wages in particular: not filling a position for 6 months usually hurts an employer less than an employee not having a job for that same amount of time.
- avianlyric 5y ago
  Please point me towards all these countries with transparent pay systems you seem to think exist.
  - notyourday 5y ago
    That was an assertion of @thescriptkiddie

booleandilemma 5y ago

Can confirm. We once found out a lazy developer was getting paid almost twice what me and others on my team were, for who knows what reason. It made everyone feel like shit.

masterof0 5y ago
That's pretty much your fault, you go to your manager and negotiate better compensation, or leave. That have happened to me as well, and I left, never looked back. If you have 7 kids, 2 mortgages, etc... and can't afford to leave, then, maybe, that's why your employer is paying you less, because they have leverage on you. My aim is not to feel bad about somebody else's salary being higher than mine, I always aim to get as much as possible. Also,it seems the "lazy" developer, is not that lazy, as he/she/{x} at least can negotiate better compensation.
danaris 5y ago
The reasonable response to that is not "so we shouldn't let anyone find out what other people are making." It's "so we should go to management, demand to know why this crappy employee is making more, and if they don't have a very good answer and won't remedy the situation, consider leaving to some place where they reward excellence."
- scaryclam 5y ago
  Devils advocate: why does it matter? Does them making more than you affect you in any way except emotionally? Are management going to say "Oh! Thanks for pointing it out, here you go, have a portion of their salary!", or are they just going to stop paying that employee as much?
  - avianlyric 5y ago
    Because you can use it to negotiate higher pay. I would say that’s a pretty significant affect on your life. Having more data in a negotiation is never a bad thing, having less always is.
    - scaryclam 5y ago
      You're making an assumption that they will negotiate your pay up, and not correct the under performers down, or do neither. More data is useful yes, but not on a per-employee basis. If the average for your position is higher, then yes, you can use that, but if it's an individual you're unlikely to get any difference for yourself, but could negatively impact them.
  - danaris 5y ago
    I believe my other comment here [0] answers that question. However, it also speaks to what is valued at that workplace. This matters not just for the "emotional" purposes, but for the implications it has for how the workplace will evolve over time due to those values. If you are someone for whom personal relationships, negotiating skills, and networking matter more than skill at the job, perhaps you think that a place where a lazy but well-connected developer is paid significantly more, and management refuses to change this, is ideal. If, on the other hand, you are someone for whom competence, productivity, and ability to do the job assigned is most important...then perhaps you will find that such a workplace will become less and less friendly to you over time. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28543162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28543162
coldcode 5y ago
Yet what if the best developer on the team was paid 3x more than everyone else, would you not also feel like shit? Unless everyone is paid exactly the same, then everyone feels like shit, which will motivate everyone to no longer care, and then your job will go away as your employer winds up as shit.

jay_kyburz 5y ago

I think its a persons own responsibility job to shop around and work out what the market value is for their labor. If a company tells you how much they pay, they are also telling every other company how much they will pay. It's basically colluding to keep wages low. You are worth what somebody will pay you.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
That is not colluding at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collusion Just because Walmart says on their website that they sell an item at $5, does not imply they have made an agreement with other sellers to also sell at $5. Nor does Carvana saying they will buy a car at $20k imply an agreement with other buyers to also buy at $20k.
- nightski 5y ago
  No, they are deceitfully agreeing to be transparent in wages. The deception is that it's secretly to not allow people to leverage their offers or ask for more.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Where is the proof? Is the claim also that at an auction, when people bid on something and yell out a number, they are “secretly” telling other bidders to not bid more? Markets all over the world for thousands of years work on the basis of buyers telling sellers what they are willing to pay, and sellers telling buyers what they are willing to sell for. The whole process of a buyer and seller coming to an agreement on price is central to determining movements of supply and demand curves. If either buyers or sellers have sufficient control to dictate prices, then that is a separate issue of there not being sufficient buyers and sellers. But price transparency always results in a better allocation of resources and a healthier marketplace.
    - jay_kyburz 5y ago
      I think you are talking about "maxim" price though right. A car has a sticker price of 10K on the showroom floor, but nobody pays that. You negotiate down from there. I think it would fine for companies to advertise a sticker price for a job, but nobody expects to actually earn that, you negotiate up from there.

ASalazarMX 5y ago

To be fair, workers are not interchangeable pieces. If you're paid less, it's not necessarily because your employer is ripping you, there are many factors: performance, commitment, disposition, ambition, networking, etc. I don't think it's a good idea to dictate fixed salaries, but it's a great idea to make them transparent. It would be nice seeing how much the best employee earns, so you could use them as a role model. It would also be nice to see if the slacker brother of your boss is earning accordingly to his performance.

pcurve 5y ago
I tend to agree. No two candidates are exactly the same. Just like there's no pay transparency, there is no candidate transparency. With things I buy off the Web, I have option of returning if they were misrepresented or do not perform. With job applicants, you can't do that.
sangnoir 5y ago
> To be fair, workers are not interchangeable pieces. True - but job posts can be occupied by interchangeable pieces; some are overachievers, but all meet a minimum requirement. "Software Engineer I" in department A can be filled by any suitable candidate, and the budget maxes out at $XXX,000. If you're being paid less than this, the employer should tell you why (commitment,disposition, ambition, networking, etc).
danaris 5y ago
> To be fair, workers are not interchangeable pieces. This is absolutely true. However, in practice, while there are certainly workplaces where differences in pay are primarily due to differences in actual productive output and value to the team/company, there are also many, many workplaces where the differences in pay are entirely due to either better negotiation skills (which have absolutely nothing to do with the work in question), or how much the people deciding on the pay like the workers in question....including how much the workers in question toe the party line and are willing to sacrifice and abuse themselves for the sake of the company. In a case like this, what is responsible is to acknowledge the good-faith cases, and put rules in place (like pay transparency) to help fight against the bad-faith and abusive cases. "We should allow companies the freedom to continue to abuse their employees, because some companies instead use that freedom to reward good employees" is not a particularly compelling argument, at least to me.

oh_sigh 5y ago

Isn't it more likely that some people would realize they are being ripped off, and some people would realize they're getting paid more than their peers?

notyourday 5y ago

> Your employer doesn't want you to discuss pay with your fellow workers, because if you did you would realize how badly you are being ripped off. Strangely, the US tends to pay more than any other country for the work, which is why those who live in other countries would rather move to the US and its non-transparent pay system. Pay transparency creates commodization of jobs which will only lead to the pay dropping rather than rising. Opaque pricing is great for sellers and the sellers in every market. In the job market the sellers are employees, not employers.

nathan11 5y ago
This assumes that the market is actually opaque for both parties. The information asymmetry between employer and employee regarding wages is pretty well documented. There are other pressures on wages in particular: not filling a position for 6 months usually hurts an employer less than an employee not having a job for that same amount of time.
avianlyric 5y ago
Please point me towards all these countries with transparent pay systems you seem to think exist.
- notyourday 5y ago
  That was an assertion of @thescriptkiddie