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Maybe, but I assume only when the differences in pay are large? E.g. in German universities, your pay is just a table lookup. The position has a certain pay sc

Maybe, but I assume only when the differences in pay are large? E.g. in German universities, your pay is just a table lookup. The position has a certain pay scale (as advertised with the position) and within that scale the number of years of experience at pay scale level is counted. Such a system may have its downsides (when trying to acquire people). But it is inherently fair: you earn the same regardless of gender, position on the intro/extrovertness scale, etc.

hueving 11y ago
> But it is inherently fair: That's bunk. Number of years of experience being a major factor is one of the quickest ways to kill any kind of meritocracy. It's true you earn the same regardless of gender, extrovertedness, etc. But it means you also earn the same regardless of competence, creativity, or general usefulness as an employee. Talented people go where they can be rewarded for being exceptional. Mediocre people dig in and count the days until their next automatic raise for continuing to breathe in and out.
- kuschku 11y ago
  And still, a lot of exceptional people are working at these universities. If you, as professor, for example, start a research project that is interesting, you also often get funding from the industry – part of which goes directly to your salary, too. So, exceptional people still have chances to get exceptional pay, but only if scientific organizations like the Fraunhofer Institute or industry corporations are interested in it.
  - davidf18 11y ago
    And of course, there is a brain drain of the very best that come to the USA from any place that doesn't fairly compensate. I'm all for these unfair compensation schemes because I want the best and brightest to come to the USA.
    - kuschku 11y ago
      Well, that doesn’t happen, though, especially in hardware – the US excels in software development, but especially in classical engineering and more hardware-focused engineering, it’s a lot behind.
      - davidf18 11y ago
        Yes, in terms of car design, Germany and Italy are tops, in terms of industrial machinery, (mechanical printing, cloth), the Germans. But I used to work as a VLSI (computer chip) designer and in that area USA (Silicon Valley) and Israel are tops. After Silicon Valley, Israel has the most computer chip designers in the world, about 20,000. Intel employs 10,000 Israelis in two design centers and two fabs. One of the fabs is a 22 nm node being upgrade to the 10 nm node. It was the Israelis that were in charge of mobile and instigated Intel's change of higher performance from lower clock rates. Apple looked all over the world for its computer chip design center and chose Israel where it now employs 700 and hiring more. Tim Cook was there in February dedicating a new building. His VP in charge of hardware/computer chip design is an Arab Israeli who has his BS and Masters degrees from Technion, the MIT of Israel.
        kuschku 11y ago
        One of the professors at my university, after he worked as one of the leading ALU designers at intel for some years, founded a company focused on general purpose computing extension cards for PCs, which he later sold, and made a fortune with – all of that outside of Germany. He only came back when he lost his money (which he invested) during the dotCom crash. Now he’s teaching here, and one of our best professors in chip design and digital engineering. As you said, a lot of the stuff happens outside of europe currently, but that’s also due to extreme electricity prices.
- danieldk 11y ago
  But it means you also earn the same regardless of competence, creativity, or general usefulness as an employee. There is probably no strong correlation between creativity/competence and the skills to negotiate a salary. There is probably a strong correlation between salary and gender, extrovertness, etc. and some correlation between years of experience and competence (within a particular scale). So, yes, it is inherently (more) fair.
  - hueving 11y ago
    No its not, it punishes competent people and rewards incompetence. There is a reason no leading tech companies do this. A university can only get away with this because good professors can earn more money from grants and can get perks like tenure. Also, if someone can't negotiate their own salary, that's their own problem. Not being able to convince a company you are worth money either means you don't understand what value you can provide or you actually aren't providing that much value. It's not up to the company to do that for you. Doing it is less fair to anyone that knows what they are doing.
    - belorn 11y ago
      Isn't this whole discussion exactly the same old one made between salaried based wages and performance based wages? One side arguing that salaried employees could just roll their thumbs and still get paid, while the other side argues that you would get fired or simply that people who do so won't get hired in the first place.
    - coliveira 11y ago
      The reason no leading tech company does this is that they are all trying to pay the least amount of money. You seem to forget that just a few years ago most big tech companies were found to run a scheme to reduce salaries of people working for them.
- OJFord 11y ago
  > But it means you also earn the same regardless of competence, creativity, or general usefulness as an employee. Well, no, because presumably the more competent employees get bumped up a payscale, and the truly "useless" ones are quickly dismissed.
- Matthias247 11y ago
  I agree. I work one of germanys biggest engineering companies (automotive sector), where pay is pretty much equal. There are certain job levels (secretary, technician, engineer, manager, etc.), but inside of these levels the salary is only determined by "years of experience" (which is mostly how long you have been in the company). I found it totally frustrating, because independent on how much effort you put in your work and how much benefit you bring to the company you won't get any monetary benefit or promotion. On the other side you see some older guys which are leaning back and waiting for retirement which get higher salaries. This really lowers the motivation to achieve something good amongst all employees after a while. It was one of the reasons I resigned and will start at a smaller company next month.
omonra 11y ago
Sorry, this is nonsense. It's fair in a world where all people are equal. Since people are unequal this is the opposite of fair.
- danieldk 11y ago
  And there are many people who are extremely good, but too shy to negotiate a higher wage. And there are people who are mediocre, who are good at making deals and get the higher pay.
  - omonra 11y ago
    And there are people who are born to rich parents - that's life. People differ in intelligence, looks, ambition - anything really. My point is that disparity in income (let's say in the same organization) is mostly to do with value that a given individual brings to the organization (in the eyes of the management who decide on this). Negotiation is an order of magnitude less important.
Merovius 11y ago
As far as I know, this only regards base-pay. There is a lot of wiggle-room in terms of bonuses, staffing, space… Apparently a professor in our math-department was expensive enough, that a different position needed to be downgraded to the point where no one qualified applied anymore. Your exact compensation also depends e.g. on whether or not you have family, to the best of my knowledge.
zeroonetwothree 11y ago
It's inherently equal, but hardly fair.

hueving 11y ago

> But it is inherently fair: That's bunk. Number of years of experience being a major factor is one of the quickest ways to kill any kind of meritocracy. It's true you earn the same regardless of gender, extrovertedness, etc. But it means you also earn the same regardless of competence, creativity, or general usefulness as an employee. Talented people go where they can be rewarded for being exceptional. Mediocre people dig in and count the days until their next automatic raise for continuing to breathe in and out.

kuschku 11y ago
And still, a lot of exceptional people are working at these universities. If you, as professor, for example, start a research project that is interesting, you also often get funding from the industry – part of which goes directly to your salary, too. So, exceptional people still have chances to get exceptional pay, but only if scientific organizations like the Fraunhofer Institute or industry corporations are interested in it.
- davidf18 11y ago
  And of course, there is a brain drain of the very best that come to the USA from any place that doesn't fairly compensate. I'm all for these unfair compensation schemes because I want the best and brightest to come to the USA.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    Well, that doesn’t happen, though, especially in hardware – the US excels in software development, but especially in classical engineering and more hardware-focused engineering, it’s a lot behind.
    - davidf18 11y ago
      Yes, in terms of car design, Germany and Italy are tops, in terms of industrial machinery, (mechanical printing, cloth), the Germans. But I used to work as a VLSI (computer chip) designer and in that area USA (Silicon Valley) and Israel are tops. After Silicon Valley, Israel has the most computer chip designers in the world, about 20,000. Intel employs 10,000 Israelis in two design centers and two fabs. One of the fabs is a 22 nm node being upgrade to the 10 nm node. It was the Israelis that were in charge of mobile and instigated Intel's change of higher performance from lower clock rates. Apple looked all over the world for its computer chip design center and chose Israel where it now employs 700 and hiring more. Tim Cook was there in February dedicating a new building. His VP in charge of hardware/computer chip design is an Arab Israeli who has his BS and Masters degrees from Technion, the MIT of Israel.
      - kuschku 11y ago
        One of the professors at my university, after he worked as one of the leading ALU designers at intel for some years, founded a company focused on general purpose computing extension cards for PCs, which he later sold, and made a fortune with – all of that outside of Germany. He only came back when he lost his money (which he invested) during the dotCom crash. Now he’s teaching here, and one of our best professors in chip design and digital engineering. As you said, a lot of the stuff happens outside of europe currently, but that’s also due to extreme electricity prices.
danieldk 11y ago
But it means you also earn the same regardless of competence, creativity, or general usefulness as an employee. There is probably no strong correlation between creativity/competence and the skills to negotiate a salary. There is probably a strong correlation between salary and gender, extrovertness, etc. and some correlation between years of experience and competence (within a particular scale). So, yes, it is inherently (more) fair.
- hueving 11y ago
  No its not, it punishes competent people and rewards incompetence. There is a reason no leading tech companies do this. A university can only get away with this because good professors can earn more money from grants and can get perks like tenure. Also, if someone can't negotiate their own salary, that's their own problem. Not being able to convince a company you are worth money either means you don't understand what value you can provide or you actually aren't providing that much value. It's not up to the company to do that for you. Doing it is less fair to anyone that knows what they are doing.
  - belorn 11y ago
    Isn't this whole discussion exactly the same old one made between salaried based wages and performance based wages? One side arguing that salaried employees could just roll their thumbs and still get paid, while the other side argues that you would get fired or simply that people who do so won't get hired in the first place.
  - coliveira 11y ago
    The reason no leading tech company does this is that they are all trying to pay the least amount of money. You seem to forget that just a few years ago most big tech companies were found to run a scheme to reduce salaries of people working for them.
OJFord 11y ago
> But it means you also earn the same regardless of competence, creativity, or general usefulness as an employee. Well, no, because presumably the more competent employees get bumped up a payscale, and the truly "useless" ones are quickly dismissed.
Matthias247 11y ago
I agree. I work one of germanys biggest engineering companies (automotive sector), where pay is pretty much equal. There are certain job levels (secretary, technician, engineer, manager, etc.), but inside of these levels the salary is only determined by "years of experience" (which is mostly how long you have been in the company). I found it totally frustrating, because independent on how much effort you put in your work and how much benefit you bring to the company you won't get any monetary benefit or promotion. On the other side you see some older guys which are leaning back and waiting for retirement which get higher salaries. This really lowers the motivation to achieve something good amongst all employees after a while. It was one of the reasons I resigned and will start at a smaller company next month.

omonra 11y ago

Sorry, this is nonsense. It's fair in a world where all people are equal. Since people are unequal this is the opposite of fair.

danieldk 11y ago
And there are many people who are extremely good, but too shy to negotiate a higher wage. And there are people who are mediocre, who are good at making deals and get the higher pay.
- omonra 11y ago
  And there are people who are born to rich parents - that's life. People differ in intelligence, looks, ambition - anything really. My point is that disparity in income (let's say in the same organization) is mostly to do with value that a given individual brings to the organization (in the eyes of the management who decide on this). Negotiation is an order of magnitude less important.

Merovius 11y ago

As far as I know, this only regards base-pay. There is a lot of wiggle-room in terms of bonuses, staffing, space… Apparently a professor in our math-department was expensive enough, that a different position needed to be downgraded to the point where no one qualified applied anymore. Your exact compensation also depends e.g. on whether or not you have family, to the best of my knowledge.

zeroonetwothree 11y ago

It's inherently equal, but hardly fair.