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Bosses Are Finding Ways to Pay Workers Less
- bluefirebrand 2y agoPeople should be absolutely furious about this honestly Productivity is up, companies are reporting record profits, and all forms of compensation are being squashed as much as possible At some point enough is enough right? This idea that people were being overpaid is absurd. We've been underpaid for decades and it's getting worse over time not better
- yieldcrv 2y agoWhat you’re pointing out applied last year when salaries were higher too though, thats an overarching theme for decades I’m not furious about what this article is saying, this article is about doing economically viable thing with workers - inside this country - in lower cost of living areas with salaries relevant there instead of higher cost of living areas I agree that employees could collectively extract more of the value they help create, I don't think every article ok the topic is the right place for that discussion
- kerkeslager 2y ago> I agree that employees could collectively extract more of the value they help create, I don't think every article ok the topic is the right place for that discussion You don't agree with anything reasonable at all. The way you just said that blames workers, as if it's workers' fault. Frankly, until people like you stop refusing to listen, every article on the topic is the right place for this discussion, because it's arguably the largest problem facing most people today and people who don't think it's important are a big part of the problem. Whatever ivory tower economics you want to talk about instead just isn't as important.
- yieldcrv 2y agoI was referring to unions as a level of agency employees could unilaterally employ If you call blame or refusing to listen, I’m not sure which talking point you are referring to. I’m not familiar with any concept or movement beyond that. Employers are not going to operate outside of market conditions, am I understanding that you wanted me to acknowledge their capability of paying more? Ok. There. I have now. The union can be a market condition.
- DiggyJohnson 2y agoYou have defined anything you disagree with as unreasonable. Don’t be surprised if everyone seems unreasonable.
- modarts 2y agoWho's "we"? Software engineers? The ones who proudly refuse to unionize?
- kerkeslager 2y agoI'm a software engineer and you don't speak for me. There are plenty of software engineers who would unionize, given the chance. It's not easy to do. And sure, with enough effort we could, but that's a pretty big difference from "refusing to".
- bluefirebrand 2y ago"We" is workers and laborers of any sort, really. Software engineers and other white collar professionals want to believe we have more in common with our CEO than we do with a plumber because we work in offices, but I'd bet most of the executive class, ownership class, boards of directors and such see us the same as plumbers: we're a necessary expense
- synicalx 2y agoI'm a unionised engineer, albeit in Australia where unionising is simply a case of finding a union and joining it.
- jstummbillig 2y agoBy what logic? What is the right price? I find it fascinating and deeply sad how the fundamental position on capital markets seemingly shifts depending on how we feel about our current treatment (as if there were not always people who took a hit)
- GolfPopper 2y agoA start would be wages matching productivity. World Economic Forum [1] "Between 1948-1979, the percent growth in productivity and wages were relatively similar, with an increase of 108 percent and 93 percent, respectively. The growth from 1979-2018, however, has been drastically different. While net productivity has continued to increase by an expected 70 percent, hourly compensation in the country is less than a fifth of that at just 12 percent." 1. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/11/productivity-workforce-america-united-states-wages-stagnate/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/11/productivity-workforc...
- nradov 2y agoHourly compensation has increased significantly more than that when you account for employer contributions to employee health insurance. We should have never allowed health insurance coverage to be tied to employment; that was a terrible public policy error but it's so entrenched now that it has become politically impossible to unwind.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- listenallyall 2y agoSince 1979, foreign manufacturing has grown massively at the expense of domestic, second, enormous advances in technology. Are you, presumably a software programmer, more productive because you're inherently smarter, or a harder worker, than a colleague from the 60s-70s? Or do you have much, much, much better tools, languages, frameworks, graphics, etc to do your job? (You might even ask if you are, actually, more productive. Engineers in the 1960s created the 747 and put men on the moon. Not entirely sure either could be done today. GDP is not really the best way to measure "productivity.")
- metadat 2y agoThere is no end to the greed.
- ein0p 2y agoThere actually is - see the various revolutions over the past few hundred years. But, as always, there’s a “but”: things would need to get much worse for that to be possible, and they would deteriorate by another order of magnitude after it happens. I’m not aware of any exceptions.
- Animats 2y ago"Salaries for tech jobs working with back-office and core operations business software that paid between $110,000 and $130,000 a year ago now go to less experienced hires for $85,000 to $100,000, he said. Some companies are laying off entire service areas, renaming the division and populating it with new hires at much lower compensation levels."
- Mistletoe 2y agoRemember when we said that tech workers should be careful what you wish for with regard to work from home? Execs are slow to learn but eventually the dim light bulb will go off in their head that someone from a much poorer country with an internet line can do the same work as their engineers making six figures and working in their home. If I was a tech worker I would be championing every return to office initiative that exists, for my own self-preservation. "Yep boss, those face-to-face meetings and talks around the coffee pot are VITAL to this company's success." You have to choose your battles.
- JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y agoOutsourcing was already a thing more than ten years ago though. It may be easier to achieve thanks to all the freelancers available, but bosses still want to hire people to control them, while outsourcing prevents that in some ways.
- somerandomqaguy 2y agoEh, maybe. There's Indian devs from Noida are up to snuff; skilled, fluent in English and hard working, and mesh well with western team members. But they're not cheap from what I've heard, especially with overhead setting up shop in a foreign country. Similar story for devs from São Paulo as well.
- intended 2y agoYou weren’t getting compensated for your commute time even previously. So you were underpaid either way. Being at the mercy of a cost cutting boss isn’t going to improve your situation - they will always find a way.
- acheron 2y agoBreaking news from 5000 BC
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- asne11 2y ago> wages for new hires in construction, manufacturing, food and other blue-collar sectors appear to be ebbing too, according to an analysis of millions of jobs posted on ZipRecruiter.com. Job seekers report seeing roles that once offered salaries between $175,000 and $200,000 a year ago now being advertised for tens of thousands of dollars less You mean, I can quit software engineering and install flooring for $150,000/year!? Count me in
- dlevine 2y agoI know multiple people who did 15+ years at Google or other big tech cos, and got let go despite having consistently good performance reviews. Those companies figured they could be replaced with younger and much cheaper people (or not replaced at all since the companies overhired during the pandemic). Fortunately, most of these people managed to find new jobs relatively quickly, albeit with somewhat lower comp packages.
- bongodongobob 2y agoThose jobs have always had inflated salaries anyway imo. I've worked with brilliant people at small companies and complete idiots at global behemoths (contracting). Working at a famous company just means you passed some litmus tests and the correlation to brilliance or a 10x type of person is weak at best. Paying someone 5-10x industry standard isn't going to get you 5-10x output. 2 people at 2x the standard is generally going to be a better bang for your buck than 1 person at 5x. Unless it's some super specialized field like genetically evolving PHP code or some shit.
- kerkeslager 2y agoAnd a $100,000/year MBA with a basic grasp of reality and the willingness to listen to people smarter than him could run Twitter better than Elon Musk. In backpacking when we're trying to lighten our packs, we have a saying, "don't cut ounces when you can cut pounds." Yet the highest-paid people involved in a company always look at the lowest paid workers to see where they can cut costs, because after all, they can't possibly pay themselves less.
- shiroiushi 2y ago>And a $100,000/year MBA with a basic grasp of reality and the willingness to listen to people smarter than him could run Twitter better than Elon Musk. This is certainly true, but that $100k MBA doesn't have enough money to buy the company, so he can't run it as a private company like Elon does. A Twitter owned by someone far less narcissistic (or publicly owned) could hire the MBA to run it, but that won't happen because that's not how companies choose their CEOs: the $100k MBA doesn't have the social connections and resume to get the job in the first place.
- jimmont 2y agoprelude to recession, as visible in Sahm rule trends at https://fred.stlouisfed.org/release?rid=456 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/release?rid=456 as well as when the 10 2 yield curve approaches +0.5 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y2Y https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y2Y with near term interest rate cuts, along with other indicators; guessing arrives early next year;
- jimmont 2y agothe article is consistent with sticky cpi, as can be seen in the transient and sticky cpi and wage tracking, in fact we appear to be in deflationary territory but I'm not an economist so my interpretation might be off https://www.atlantafed.org/research/inflationproject/stickyprice https://www.atlantafed.org/research/inflationproject/stickyp... https://www.atlantafed.org/chcs/wage-growth-tracker https://www.atlantafed.org/chcs/wage-growth-tracker
- Izkata 2y agoNot a prelude, the Sahm rule is an indicator a recession has already begun.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y agohttps://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/bosses-are-finding-ways-to-pay-workers-less/ar-AA1pCcpj https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/bosses-are-finding... Text-only: https://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA1pCcpj https://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA1pCcpj
- elena567 2y ago[dead]