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It goes beyond salary discussion -- the law also protects discussion of working conditions. One of my former employers once placed a noisy server in the main w

by YokoZar 12y ago

It goes beyond salary discussion -- the law also protects discussion of working conditions. One of my former employers once placed a noisy server in the main working area where employees had their desks. It was a serious distraction for some, and people began to complain to eachother. Management tried to shut down this conversation. This was technically illegal -- employees have a right to discuss their working conditions with eachother, even if they're not actively forming a union. Even if it's a cushy startup job in a nice office and the working conditions are the free food benefit not being as tasty as usual. Similarly, employees can discuss pay. And it's time we did discuss pay openly - a lot of us aren't sure whether we should expect 75k or 150k at our next job, or anywhere in between. Salaries are all over the map in this market, and job roles are similarly not well defined.

rodgerd 12y ago
> And it's time we did discuss pay openly It's worth noting that unions historically had a fair degree of pay transparency for precisely this reason. One of my first jobs was in a company that whose owner was keen to aggressively de-unionise. Contracts for new, individually contracted employees (like naive young me) were pitched as better than the old union contracts[1]. They had secrecy clauses in them specifically as part of the divide-and-conqueor part of the operation, as well as making sure none of the individuals knew how much they were losing out on their superfically better contracts (see [1] again). Ironically enough a number of senior managers weren't that keen on de-unionising[2], but the owner[3] insisted. [1] A higher base salary, but with no penal/overtime provisions. Since I was young and foolish I didn't realise that while my colleagues nominally earned $10-15,000 p.a. less than me, in practise they took home twice as much because they got 1.5-3 time multipliers for all those 2 am finished and Saturday evenings spent babying 30 year old publishing systems. [2] Negotiating and ongoing management of 600 individual contracts, or negotiations with three or four union negotiating teams? The assistant GM vastly preferred the latter. [3] Murdoch.

by YokoZar 12y ago

rodgerd 12y ago

> And it's time we did discuss pay openly It's worth noting that unions historically had a fair degree of pay transparency for precisely this reason. One of my first jobs was in a company that whose owner was keen to aggressively de-unionise. Contracts for new, individually contracted employees (like naive young me) were pitched as better than the old union contracts[1]. They had secrecy clauses in them specifically as part of the divide-and-conqueor part of the operation, as well as making sure none of the individuals knew how much they were losing out on their superfically better contracts (see [1] again). Ironically enough a number of senior managers weren't that keen on de-unionising[2], but the owner[3] insisted. [1] A higher base salary, but with no penal/overtime provisions. Since I was young and foolish I didn't realise that while my colleagues nominally earned $10-15,000 p.a. less than me, in practise they took home twice as much because they got 1.5-3 time multipliers for all those 2 am finished and Saturday evenings spent babying 30 year old publishing systems. [2] Negotiating and ongoing management of 600 individual contracts, or negotiations with three or four union negotiating teams? The assistant GM vastly preferred the latter. [3] Murdoch.