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It's not just HR. As a consultant, wage "transparency" is just price fixing with the effect of mean reversion that disadvantages applicants. The underlying pret

It's not just HR. As a consultant, wage "transparency" is just price fixing with the effect of mean reversion that disadvantages applicants. The underlying pretext of these anti-negotiation activists is that the people looking for jobs lack skills, agency, and grit, and work on a tenuous 19th century narrative where job seekers were essentially beggars going hat in hand for a wage in exchange for exploited labour. If you believe them, you've been taken and the only thing being exploited is perhaps your ignorance of an entire genre of $3.99 paperbacks on how to negotiate a basic wage. If you're really serious about anti-negotiation, there's nothing anyone can tell an ideologue other than that gaslighting poor people is despicable.

nonethewiser 3y ago
Im sympathetic to the price fixing concerns. But publishing wages seems like a detail of executing a price fixing scheme (which can be executed other ways currently). I dont see how it encourages price fixing. It seems to me the forces discouraging price fixing include ethical obligations, competition, and threat of law. I dont see how wage transparency overcomes any of these. You would still need to be an asshole willing to break the law with the threat of a competitor undercutting you.
genocidicbunny 3y ago
> and work on a tenuous 19th century narrative where job seekers were essentially beggars going hat in hand for a wage in exchange for exploited labour. ...Except that is still more or less the case for the vast majority of workers. Most employers won't even wait for you to finish your negotiation spiel before kicking you out and moving onto the next applicant. Most people, at least in the US (which is seemingly the focus), are not working in an industry where workers have any real room for negotiation. You might be able to get a dollar or two per hour more if you really impress the hiring manager, but that's not happening for the $10/hr kinds of jobs that so many people work. And if you try to squeeze the employer for more, they probably have a stack of applications many of whom will take whatever the employer gives them because their alternative is getting paid nothing at all.
- motohagiography 3y ago
  A "dollar or two" in the $10/h range is literally being able to negotiate a 10-20% raise. If you can get someone to move 10-20% in a single conversation, you're worth every penny and then some.
  - genocidicbunny 3y ago
    I specifically said that you're not getting those kinds of movements in the $10/hr kinds of jobs.
bglazer 3y ago
What changed that suddenly gave workers the upper hand in negotiating with company management? The whole “hat in hand bit” seems like an effort to obscure the obvious fact that individual workers still lack meaningful power in negotiating wages.

nonethewiser 3y ago

Im sympathetic to the price fixing concerns. But publishing wages seems like a detail of executing a price fixing scheme (which can be executed other ways currently). I dont see how it encourages price fixing. It seems to me the forces discouraging price fixing include ethical obligations, competition, and threat of law. I dont see how wage transparency overcomes any of these. You would still need to be an asshole willing to break the law with the threat of a competitor undercutting you.

genocidicbunny 3y ago

> and work on a tenuous 19th century narrative where job seekers were essentially beggars going hat in hand for a wage in exchange for exploited labour. ...Except that is still more or less the case for the vast majority of workers. Most employers won't even wait for you to finish your negotiation spiel before kicking you out and moving onto the next applicant. Most people, at least in the US (which is seemingly the focus), are not working in an industry where workers have any real room for negotiation. You might be able to get a dollar or two per hour more if you really impress the hiring manager, but that's not happening for the $10/hr kinds of jobs that so many people work. And if you try to squeeze the employer for more, they probably have a stack of applications many of whom will take whatever the employer gives them because their alternative is getting paid nothing at all.

motohagiography 3y ago
A "dollar or two" in the $10/h range is literally being able to negotiate a 10-20% raise. If you can get someone to move 10-20% in a single conversation, you're worth every penny and then some.
- genocidicbunny 3y ago
  I specifically said that you're not getting those kinds of movements in the $10/hr kinds of jobs.

bglazer 3y ago

What changed that suddenly gave workers the upper hand in negotiating with company management? The whole “hat in hand bit” seems like an effort to obscure the obvious fact that individual workers still lack meaningful power in negotiating wages.