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And yet unions and public positions have openly posted salaries and it doesn’t seem to hurt them. It’s actually quite easy to do. You must be joking? You enc

And yet unions and public positions have openly posted salaries and it doesn’t seem to hurt them. It’s actually quite easy to do. You must be joking? You encouraged political activism at work and are surprised it led to problems? Is political activism code for “so long as it follows my politics”? Would you encourage a pro-lifer to be just as active as pro-choices? In any company I’ve worked at, the answer would be no. People always seem to be surprised that others think differently than they do. I really can’t believe the hubris that goes into that. When talking to people (who suck at discourse) who think they are tolerant, but really aren’t, the conversation almost always devolves to “you’re a Nazi”. When talking to people (who suck at discourse) who think are very right wing, the conversation tends to devolve into something about how God made people/ the world / etc. The easiest thing is just give people three PTO days that don’t carry that you encourage to use for civic purposes, but don’t enforce, and maybe set up a matching donation up to $X for any org with the valid paperwork.

aerosmile 5y ago
Unions and public positions are not the only ones with public salary info. As I stated in an earlier comment: Airlines pay just like that (as do taxi companies and most other parts of the transportation industry). Guess what you all have in common? Zero agency. So when you take a job where the ideal output of your labor is 100% deterministic, then it makes sense for your pay to reflect that.
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  But many extremely high paying, high agency jobs do have public or public ish salaries. Biglaw as one example, and functionally big tech as well. I know the salary ranges for my level, and the level above and below me, at Facebook and Amazon and Google. There's some numbers and a formula based on your performance rating, and for like 95% of people, those numbers and that formula will be within 5% of your compensation. There's lots of agency, and a fair amount of variability within a level (25%), but how your performance impacts that outcome is fairly well understood.
  - morgante 5y ago
    I would definitely not characterize big tech as having "public salaries." Simply knowing someone's level is completely insufficient for knowing their compensation. When compensation within a level has $100k+ variability, it's definitely not public knowledge. Yes, if you have their full and work performance history you can determine their salary. But most people are actually quite uncomfortable with sharing their performance publicly.
    - joshuamorton 5y ago
      Fair, but ranges are functionally public (and when not public, they're still 90-95% algorithmic). I know what the upper end of what I can get paid without promotion is, and I know, generally speaking, what I need to do to get there.

aerosmile 5y ago

Unions and public positions are not the only ones with public salary info. As I stated in an earlier comment: Airlines pay just like that (as do taxi companies and most other parts of the transportation industry). Guess what you all have in common? Zero agency. So when you take a job where the ideal output of your labor is 100% deterministic, then it makes sense for your pay to reflect that.

joshuamorton 5y ago
But many extremely high paying, high agency jobs do have public or public ish salaries. Biglaw as one example, and functionally big tech as well. I know the salary ranges for my level, and the level above and below me, at Facebook and Amazon and Google. There's some numbers and a formula based on your performance rating, and for like 95% of people, those numbers and that formula will be within 5% of your compensation. There's lots of agency, and a fair amount of variability within a level (25%), but how your performance impacts that outcome is fairly well understood.
- morgante 5y ago
  I would definitely not characterize big tech as having "public salaries." Simply knowing someone's level is completely insufficient for knowing their compensation. When compensation within a level has $100k+ variability, it's definitely not public knowledge. Yes, if you have their full and work performance history you can determine their salary. But most people are actually quite uncomfortable with sharing their performance publicly.
  - joshuamorton 5y ago
    Fair, but ranges are functionally public (and when not public, they're still 90-95% algorithmic). I know what the upper end of what I can get paid without promotion is, and I know, generally speaking, what I need to do to get there.