4 ms·
Poor negotiation and group think stole the 4 hour workday. I've seen companies where you can have 2 devs working on the same project, one making say $30,000-40
by programminggeek 12y ago
Poor negotiation and group think stole the 4 hour workday.
I've seen companies where you can have 2 devs working on the same project, one making say $30,000-40,000 and one making like $60,000-70,000. They do the same work, but have wildly different valuations because of their ability to negotiate.
If people negotiated higher rates and fewer hours, that is entirely possible to achieve and eventually could be the norm, but most people don't negotiate for anything. They think an extra $2,000/yr. is a big win, but then turn around and work an extra 10 hours a week at a job they hate.
The value in unions was that they would negotiate harder than individuals will. They perhaps outlive their usefulness and aren't great as an entity that should last forever because demanding more money every year doesn't always work if the company isn't having a good year, but the point still stands that lack of negotiating power is a problem.
C levels executives make outsized amounts of money because of 2 things - the higher you get in an organization, the better you probably are at negotiating (otherwise you wouldn't make it to the top), and many have agents that negotiate on their behalf (just like pro athletes).
I'm not an expert at negotiation, but I do know that the people who know how to negotiate well can get wins that the average person can't comprehend. A lot of people could negotiate their way into a 4 hour workday if they tried, they just don't know how.
- spiritplumber 12y agoIt puzzles me how Americans don't want to discuss how much they make with coworkers.
- programminggeek 12y agoWell, bosses have been known to threaten to fire workers if they are found to be discussing how much money they work. People act as if it would be impossible to work at a company where people could know what other people make. Yet, public school teachers have a pay schedule that is pretty cut and dry, government workers' salaries are public record, etc. Somehow people manage to work those jobs without any kind of mutiny due to freely available information. I'm sure there are other companies where this works out just fine. Mostly, companies take advantage of the information asymmetry to pay as little as they possibly have to. It works for them as long as people don't find out their getting screwed. If people find out, they negotiate better. Ultimately, that probably leads to people getting paid better or getting a better paying job. If companies just took care of the employees well to begin with, it wouldn't matter if people knew how much other people were getting paid. At the end of the day, it's a problem of greed, and that's an unsolvable problem as long as humans are involved.
- jondtaylor 12y agoI appreciate your comment the most. If you want something then make it happen. Don't wait for the slow crawl of society to take you where you want to go.