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You are effectively buying those labour protections with the difference in salary. Companies could even offer that as an option. We pay you $97k with no labo

You are effectively buying those labour protections with the difference in salary. Companies could even offer that as an option. We pay you $97k with no labour protections, or $68k but we promise to give you all the labour rights that Germany has, including nice long holidays, unions, no unpaid overtime, can't be fired without cause, etc. Your choice. (And those figures are the median programmer salary in the USA and Germany respectively)

baq 2y ago
Are there any companies who do offer such things, though?
- dento 2y ago
  When working remotely, you're often allowed to pick between employment and b2b contracts, which is essentially the same thing.
  - pimeys 2y ago
    And in countries such as Germany you are legally required to be an employee if you only work for one company. The government will sue the company or if not reachable, they will sue the employee. So deel.com is a usual choice.
cr1895 2y ago
>but we promise of course, who's to say that next quarter priorities of management or shareholders shift & those "promises" evaporate?
- less_less 2y ago
  Of course you'd want to put those terms in the employment contract, not just a verbal promise. Surely you wouldn't get exactly the same protection as in another country with a completely different legal system, but at least you could get part of it. And yeah, they could terminate the contract, but they would still be bound by its terms that say how they can do that, with how much notice, for what reasons, and how much they will owe you.
  - londons_explore 2y ago
    Contract law is strong. If a company deliberately gave the employee lots of rights in an employment contract (in return for less pay), a court would hold the company to that later whilst it was solvent, even if company management later changes it's approach.
surgical_fire 2y ago
> You are effectively buying those labour protections with the difference in salary. Yes. And I appreciate those labor protections enough that I gladly pay for them. I could still buy a car, a house, raise a family, have some savings, etc. The stability and security provided by the labor protections are very much appreciated, a lot more than some extra cash would be.
- nudgeee 2y ago
  That, and the peace of mind of not being fired at-will when economic times aren’t so good.
  - ekianjo 2y ago
    this also means companies are much more hesitant to hire
    - madeofpalk 2y ago
      I would rather companies be a lot more deliberate about hiring people rather than just hiring and firing willy nilly.
    - consp 2y ago
      Having short term contracts solved this a long time ago and is mostly a fallacy.
      - refurb 2y ago
        How is a short term contract a solution? It sounds like you don’t have a job at the end of the contract?
        lazyasciiart 2y ago
        Yes, but you know when that will happen.
b112 2y ago
You are effectively buying those labour protections with the difference in salary. There may be some truth to this, but it's not as stark as some think. The average cost of a "moderate" house in.. say, Palo Alto is around $3M USD. Those are typically older houses, smaller lots, less desirable neighbourhoods. Everything is more expensive in such an area. Property tax on that $3M USD house is likely going to be about $20k USD per year, one may as well say an additional $2000/month. That property tax alone is more than most people pay for mortgages in any other place in the US. I once compared my Ottawa, ON, Canada salary to at typical, comparable one in SV. After looking at the cost of housing, and living, I determined that even though I was making 1/3 the salary? I was taking home more. Now of course, there is one key difference here. If you don't rent, and do buy, some of that missing "take home" goes into property which does have value. But if you're a renter? If your primary cost (housing) isn't coming back to you in some way? That SV salary is actually a lot less than you think. I'd take $100kUSD in Ottawa, over $200kUSD, maybe even $300kUSD in SV, if I wasn't able to buy. EG, forced to rent. And I'd have more money in my pocket in Ottawa, at end of day. Oh, and that massive property tax certainly isn't recoverable. You're paying some of that whether you rent (because the landlord does), or if you buy.
- DarkmSparks 2y ago
  A big section of this is the petrodollar creating an perversly stong USD. As that dies off and the USD rebalances to a post American empire equilibrium, housing priced in USD will be far more similar everywhere, exactly the same way it did post British and French empires. (back when 1gbp would buy you 10usd)
  - b112 2y ago
    I don't get the reasoning here. Costs in SV are a direct result of the economic powerhouse it is, and the size of the local population. A lot of people cite all sorts of other reasons, but those reasons exist in every other US state to a degree, and yet many of those states do not have high property costs. It's all about population density compared with economic might. If the USD was to crash tomorrow, people in SV would still draw their salaries, housing would still be the same price relative to them. You're not going to erase costs due to population density and economic drive, because a dollar drops a bit. Not to mention, the UK has a GDP basically half the US per capita. That has nothing to do with a petro dollar or not. I really see the "petro dollar" thing is a talking point, without the validity to back it up.
NicoJuicy 2y ago
That's not true. The higher wages in the US are not related to labour protections. They are related to vastly higher wages in tech because of big corps pushing up those wages to have the best of the best working for them. Proof is simple: Since a lot of low paying jobs in the US have no labour protections. Or look at what Tesla does in Texas, with the "unprotected" third party companies that don't have labour protections. They are vastly worse off than those that work for Tesla ( since the country required minimum protections and Tesla didn't apply that to contractors)
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > Proof is simple: Since a lot of low paying jobs in the US have no labour protections. That doesn't follow. The low paying jobs exist because the value to the employer of hiring someone exceeds the low pay. For those jobs, if the employer is required to provide paid vacation etc. then it can push the cost of hiring someone over the cost of offshoring the job or automating it, so the alternative then isn't high pay vs. low pay, it's have a job vs. no job. Also, many of the costs are in proportion to the pay, e.g. the cost of a vacation day is the cost of paying someone else to cover, so the difference will often be a percentage rather than a fixed amount. Then it's no surprise that skilled professionals get paid more than unskilled labor, but that doesn't mean the unskilled laborers can't still be making more than they would be in the alternative where the company had higher costs to hire them. > Or look at what Tesla does in Texas, with the "unprotected" third party companies that don't have labour protections. They are vastly worse off than those that work for Tesla ( since the country required minimum protections and Tesla didn't apply that to contractors) They have fewer employee benefits, but in return contractors generally get higher hourly wages. One way or another they have to convince the worker to work for them instead of somebody else.
  - lazide 2y ago
    Total comp for experienced software engineers in Silicon Valley exceeded $750k/yr for several years. Your argument makes no sense. It was a bubble, but a bubble that has been inflated for a very long time.
rakoo 2y ago
> we promise There you go. Remember folks: a company's interests are directly opposite to yours. If it makes enough money to not hold their promise, they will. I don't want promises from an actor that is structurally infinitely more powerful than I ever will be. This is why not only must this be on contract and enforceable at any time, but individualistic mindset is always against our interests, because it's easy to promise to one who will be able to defend themselves and plunder another one who can't. It's not my choice, it's our choice.
smokel 2y ago
No, you are not buying that in your salary. The cost of living is shared more evenly in most European countries. You may consider it an insurance, and most insurance policies don't work if there is only one buyer.
TeMPOraL 2y ago
> You are effectively buying those labour protections with the difference in salary. FWIW, this is not as simple as labour protections being effectively equivalent to $29k. By being a legal requirement and not a choice, that $29k doesn't register to the market as using disposable income, so competitive pressure doesn't inflate prices of everything to compensate. It's strictly better than having a choice between $97k and $68k + labor protections.
- rsynnott 2y ago
  Also you are not taxed on that notional 29k, of course (this is one reason that companies often offer in excess of the statutory minimum paid leave etc; it’s essentially an un-taxable benefit). Given the choice between an extra week paid leave at your 100k a year job (notional value is ~2k) or a 2k raise, you’re probably better off taking the leave.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > By being a legal requirement and not a choice, that $29k doesn't register to the market as using disposable income, so competitive pressure doesn't inflate prices of everything to compensate. In competitive markets prices approach the cost of production rather than absorbing all of the disposable income of the customer. If you have uncompetitive markets, that is a separate problem with its own solutions. And then you have the other problem. The job pays $29k less because it costs the company that much to avoid those costs, i.e. they're willing to pay that much more to someone in the US to do the same job. That doesn't mean you're getting $29k in value. Some of the money is going to compliance and administration rather than you. And in general money is worth more than stuff, because if you want the stuff you can buy it with money, but if you don't want that specific stuff then turning it back into money or other stuff at best incurs transaction costs and at worst isn't even achievable. The notion that you're not taxed on the stuff is also an illusion; the rules apply to everyone in the jurisdiction and the government needs however much money from people to provide the services it provides so if you're not paying it there you're either paying it somewhere else or getting fewer government services.
  - ben_w 2y ago
hyperman1 2y ago
Belgian healthcare started like that. First, workers personally kept apart a part of their wages. Then people in 1 factory pooled their money together. Then clusters of factories united into 'verbonden', a union-like construct . These where, like a lot of things at the time, grouped by world view:. Christian, socialist, ... After a while, the governement wanted in, joined the verbonden to landsbonden (Country level insurers grouped by world view) and put themselves in the money stream. The end result is Belgium having a weird construction half way between private health insurance and country-level health insurance.
- jonasdegendt 2y ago
  > ‘verbonden’ Co-op is the word you’re looking for. These co-ops went far beyond just healthcare after all. They owned bakeries, pharmacies, entertainment facilities for the workers, …
  - hyperman1 2y ago
    There isn't really a good translation, the concept doesn't really exist in other countries. They have aspects of unions, co-ops, governemental and political organisations. In the past, they had their own legal status. Today, the EU forced them to become real corporations, and e.g. had them split of the travel aspects from the health insurance aspects.
littlestymaar 2y ago
The problem is that this additional salary in turns inflates the housing market or tuition fees, and at the end of the day you're not earning that much in exchange for the protection you gave up.

baq 2y ago

Are there any companies who do offer such things, though?

dento 2y ago
When working remotely, you're often allowed to pick between employment and b2b contracts, which is essentially the same thing.
- pimeys 2y ago
  And in countries such as Germany you are legally required to be an employee if you only work for one company. The government will sue the company or if not reachable, they will sue the employee. So deel.com is a usual choice.

cr1895 2y ago

>but we promise of course, who's to say that next quarter priorities of management or shareholders shift & those "promises" evaporate?

less_less 2y ago
Of course you'd want to put those terms in the employment contract, not just a verbal promise. Surely you wouldn't get exactly the same protection as in another country with a completely different legal system, but at least you could get part of it. And yeah, they could terminate the contract, but they would still be bound by its terms that say how they can do that, with how much notice, for what reasons, and how much they will owe you.
- londons_explore 2y ago
  Contract law is strong. If a company deliberately gave the employee lots of rights in an employment contract (in return for less pay), a court would hold the company to that later whilst it was solvent, even if company management later changes it's approach.

surgical_fire 2y ago

> You are effectively buying those labour protections with the difference in salary. Yes. And I appreciate those labor protections enough that I gladly pay for them. I could still buy a car, a house, raise a family, have some savings, etc. The stability and security provided by the labor protections are very much appreciated, a lot more than some extra cash would be.

nudgeee 2y ago
That, and the peace of mind of not being fired at-will when economic times aren’t so good.
- ekianjo 2y ago
  this also means companies are much more hesitant to hire
  - madeofpalk 2y ago
    I would rather companies be a lot more deliberate about hiring people rather than just hiring and firing willy nilly.
  - consp 2y ago
    Having short term contracts solved this a long time ago and is mostly a fallacy.
    - refurb 2y ago
      How is a short term contract a solution? It sounds like you don’t have a job at the end of the contract?
      - lazyasciiart 2y ago
        Yes, but you know when that will happen.

b112 2y ago

You are effectively buying those labour protections with the difference in salary. There may be some truth to this, but it's not as stark as some think. The average cost of a "moderate" house in.. say, Palo Alto is around $3M USD. Those are typically older houses, smaller lots, less desirable neighbourhoods. Everything is more expensive in such an area. Property tax on that $3M USD house is likely going to be about $20k USD per year, one may as well say an additional $2000/month. That property tax alone is more than most people pay for mortgages in any other place in the US. I once compared my Ottawa, ON, Canada salary to at typical, comparable one in SV. After looking at the cost of housing, and living, I determined that even though I was making 1/3 the salary? I was taking home more. Now of course, there is one key difference here. If you don't rent, and do buy, some of that missing "take home" goes into property which does have value. But if you're a renter? If your primary cost (housing) isn't coming back to you in some way? That SV salary is actually a lot less than you think. I'd take $100kUSD in Ottawa, over $200kUSD, maybe even $300kUSD in SV, if I wasn't able to buy. EG, forced to rent. And I'd have more money in my pocket in Ottawa, at end of day. Oh, and that massive property tax certainly isn't recoverable. You're paying some of that whether you rent (because the landlord does), or if you buy.

DarkmSparks 2y ago
A big section of this is the petrodollar creating an perversly stong USD. As that dies off and the USD rebalances to a post American empire equilibrium, housing priced in USD will be far more similar everywhere, exactly the same way it did post British and French empires. (back when 1gbp would buy you 10usd)
- b112 2y ago
  I don't get the reasoning here. Costs in SV are a direct result of the economic powerhouse it is, and the size of the local population. A lot of people cite all sorts of other reasons, but those reasons exist in every other US state to a degree, and yet many of those states do not have high property costs. It's all about population density compared with economic might. If the USD was to crash tomorrow, people in SV would still draw their salaries, housing would still be the same price relative to them. You're not going to erase costs due to population density and economic drive, because a dollar drops a bit. Not to mention, the UK has a GDP basically half the US per capita. That has nothing to do with a petro dollar or not. I really see the "petro dollar" thing is a talking point, without the validity to back it up.

NicoJuicy 2y ago

That's not true. The higher wages in the US are not related to labour protections. They are related to vastly higher wages in tech because of big corps pushing up those wages to have the best of the best working for them. Proof is simple: Since a lot of low paying jobs in the US have no labour protections. Or look at what Tesla does in Texas, with the "unprotected" third party companies that don't have labour protections. They are vastly worse off than those that work for Tesla ( since the country required minimum protections and Tesla didn't apply that to contractors)

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> Proof is simple: Since a lot of low paying jobs in the US have no labour protections. That doesn't follow. The low paying jobs exist because the value to the employer of hiring someone exceeds the low pay. For those jobs, if the employer is required to provide paid vacation etc. then it can push the cost of hiring someone over the cost of offshoring the job or automating it, so the alternative then isn't high pay vs. low pay, it's have a job vs. no job. Also, many of the costs are in proportion to the pay, e.g. the cost of a vacation day is the cost of paying someone else to cover, so the difference will often be a percentage rather than a fixed amount. Then it's no surprise that skilled professionals get paid more than unskilled labor, but that doesn't mean the unskilled laborers can't still be making more than they would be in the alternative where the company had higher costs to hire them. > Or look at what Tesla does in Texas, with the "unprotected" third party companies that don't have labour protections. They are vastly worse off than those that work for Tesla ( since the country required minimum protections and Tesla didn't apply that to contractors) They have fewer employee benefits, but in return contractors generally get higher hourly wages. One way or another they have to convince the worker to work for them instead of somebody else.
- lazide 2y ago
  Total comp for experienced software engineers in Silicon Valley exceeded $750k/yr for several years. Your argument makes no sense. It was a bubble, but a bubble that has been inflated for a very long time.

rakoo 2y ago

> we promise There you go. Remember folks: a company's interests are directly opposite to yours. If it makes enough money to not hold their promise, they will. I don't want promises from an actor that is structurally infinitely more powerful than I ever will be. This is why not only must this be on contract and enforceable at any time, but individualistic mindset is always against our interests, because it's easy to promise to one who will be able to defend themselves and plunder another one who can't. It's not my choice, it's our choice.

smokel 2y ago

No, you are not buying that in your salary. The cost of living is shared more evenly in most European countries. You may consider it an insurance, and most insurance policies don't work if there is only one buyer.

TeMPOraL 2y ago

> You are effectively buying those labour protections with the difference in salary. FWIW, this is not as simple as labour protections being effectively equivalent to $29k. By being a legal requirement and not a choice, that $29k doesn't register to the market as using disposable income, so competitive pressure doesn't inflate prices of everything to compensate. It's strictly better than having a choice between $97k and $68k + labor protections.

rsynnott 2y ago
Also you are not taxed on that notional 29k, of course (this is one reason that companies often offer in excess of the statutory minimum paid leave etc; it’s essentially an un-taxable benefit). Given the choice between an extra week paid leave at your 100k a year job (notional value is ~2k) or a 2k raise, you’re probably better off taking the leave.
AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> By being a legal requirement and not a choice, that $29k doesn't register to the market as using disposable income, so competitive pressure doesn't inflate prices of everything to compensate. In competitive markets prices approach the cost of production rather than absorbing all of the disposable income of the customer. If you have uncompetitive markets, that is a separate problem with its own solutions. And then you have the other problem. The job pays $29k less because it costs the company that much to avoid those costs, i.e. they're willing to pay that much more to someone in the US to do the same job. That doesn't mean you're getting $29k in value. Some of the money is going to compliance and administration rather than you. And in general money is worth more than stuff, because if you want the stuff you can buy it with money, but if you don't want that specific stuff then turning it back into money or other stuff at best incurs transaction costs and at worst isn't even achievable. The notion that you're not taxed on the stuff is also an illusion; the rules apply to everyone in the jurisdiction and the government needs however much money from people to provide the services it provides so if you're not paying it there you're either paying it somewhere else or getting fewer government services.
- ben_w 2y ago

hyperman1 2y ago

Belgian healthcare started like that. First, workers personally kept apart a part of their wages. Then people in 1 factory pooled their money together. Then clusters of factories united into 'verbonden', a union-like construct . These where, like a lot of things at the time, grouped by world view:. Christian, socialist, ... After a while, the governement wanted in, joined the verbonden to landsbonden (Country level insurers grouped by world view) and put themselves in the money stream. The end result is Belgium having a weird construction half way between private health insurance and country-level health insurance.

jonasdegendt 2y ago
> ‘verbonden’ Co-op is the word you’re looking for. These co-ops went far beyond just healthcare after all. They owned bakeries, pharmacies, entertainment facilities for the workers, …
- hyperman1 2y ago
  There isn't really a good translation, the concept doesn't really exist in other countries. They have aspects of unions, co-ops, governemental and political organisations. In the past, they had their own legal status. Today, the EU forced them to become real corporations, and e.g. had them split of the travel aspects from the health insurance aspects.

littlestymaar 2y ago

The problem is that this additional salary in turns inflates the housing market or tuition fees, and at the end of the day you're not earning that much in exchange for the protection you gave up.