Socialize the information
Seriously discuss salaries. My coworker was making half of what I was making for doing the same job.
In the same way, I discovered that everyone got paid. Except me. For a month. I left the job, best decision ever made.
I have several stories on this I like to tell.
I worked at a startup in NYC that was doing job-search related stuff. Find job postings, get resume advice, that kind of stuff. Someone in the customer service department found an article online about salaries, shared it, and then people were talking about how much they got paid. Management came down hard on this, and said it was a fireable offense to talk about salary. Everyone got real quiet on the topic after that. Was it illegal for them to do that? Maybe! But laws only matter when they’re enforced, and a bunch of entry level people making $30-50k a year don’t have the means to launch a legal challenge. That’s even if there’s enough solidarity to try, and the effort won’t be scuttled by scabs and bootlickers.
For extra irony, a couple years later the company launched an “Are you getting paid enough?” salary comparison tool.
I worked at a different startup in NYC. This one loved data. Data data data. They had t-shirts made that said stuff like “Data doesn’t care about your feelings” or whatever.
People started agitating about salary transparency. They wanted to know how much people were being made, because there was a sense that not everyone was getting paid the same for the same work. Also, some of us had in secret started comparing notes, and found some wide gaps.
Well, the CEO wasn’t having it. He said “we have salary bands”, but wouldn’t provide more detail on the range of the bands, who was in what band, and how it all worked. Just we have salary bands and they’re fair.
People didn’t like that, so he tried changing tactics. He said, “Who here thinks they’re being paid too much money? No one? No one wants a pay cut. Right. So that’s why we’re not going to release the specifics.” As if the only solution to Amy being paid too little is to lower Bob’s pay.
This is the same CEO, at the same “we love data” company, that when people brought up studies about four day workweeks being more effective, just shut it down with “We’re not doing that.”
Management and ownership don’t care. They don’t care about what’s legal or just. They care about power, and profit as a close second. I knew a guy that worked in a factory, and the owner reportedly would say stuff like “If you assholes unionize I will burn this place to the ground, and I don’t care if you’re inside or not.”
There need to be institutions, with teeth, to stop these kinds of things. If ownership even whispers an anti-union sentiment, they should lose everything.
Places like that you work hard, get the experience and title(s), leave. Rinse and repeat.
In the US, not only is it completely legal to openly discuss compensation with anyone you like, it is also illegal for your employer to tell you not to, or to retaliate against you for doing so. It is a highly protected activity.
Employers have all the power, though. It is they who may reliably hide behind the law for protection. Laws that protect employees are rare to be passed and rarer to be enforced.
You’re not wrong, but it’s worth contacting DoL if you need to on this one.
Worked for a payroll firm and 99.75% of lemmy would be astonished at how powerful the state labor board is. And this was in Florida! Hardly a bastion of labor rights.
“waGe TheFT!”
“Have you called the state labor board and inquired?”
“NOAWW! I’m a victim and I make memes!”
Only our worst client, and only 1, wasn’t scared shitless of a call from the state labor folks. And these clients were rock-bottom, minimum-wage employers like restaurants, churches and thrift stores. Part of our payroll service was protecting the employer from fucking over the employees!
While I’m on about knowing your rights, a $26 legal insurance plan can save you 10’s of thousands with a single use. I call mine every few months.
“Can they do this? What about this? What are my rights? What if I do this thing? What form do I fill out and how?!” Mostly super-simple stuff, but my divorce and child custody cases alone saved me far than I will spend in the next 40 years.
The difference between rich and poor is legal representation. $26/mo.
Support from the state is likely to vary based on local context and the current administrations.
No one should be naively hopeful.
It is most optimal to rely on labor organization for finding individuals with specific relevant experience.
Yeah, my buddy got fired from his job working at a hospital right after going on medical leave for a mental health diagnosis. Easy open-and-shut case of illegal discrimination. Not only has he been in a legal battle over it for several years now with no end in sight, but he’s had absolutely no luck finding jobs at other hospitals in the area, which given his experience is unusual, causing him to believe he’s been blacklisted in some way. For all intents and purposes the US legal system is pay-to-win, and employers are playing with very big pockets.
We are in agreement.
If you’re in an at-will state, they can fire you this without saying this is why, and it’s very hard to prove this was why.
Montana is the only state where an employer needs “good cause” to terminate.
Though everywhere I have ever worked (in tech, in the US) it was highly discouraged to talk about salary.
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Significant numbers of people do believe that it is not social acceptable, and many employers do perpetuate that notion.
Now you know that that is illegal.
We’ve been programmed to consider it rude to encroach the subject.
Ironically, the public sector makes salaries available to everyone to view.
Totally agree — comparing ranges helps people negotiate fairly. Best move is sharing numbers with context (role, level, location) so it stays useful, not messy.
Yep, that’s why companies try so hard to intimidate people into keeping that info secret. I think most if not every company I’ve ever worked for has had some version of
- It’s against company policy
- It’s illegal
- It will just create jealousy
And of course, my responses have always been
- Too bad, it’s federally protected
- Liar
- No, your payroll policies do that; same job, same pay
It will just create jealousy
Ah yes, because if that worker just happened upon others’ salaries, they wouldn’t be jealous.
Serious question: how do you start that conversation with a coworker if you’re not 100% certain they’ll be receptive?
As someone who detests small talk, this is one of the few times when it is essentially.
First step is learning if they are a snitch. Second is seeing if they can be critical of workplace. Third is bringing up your own salary. Fourth is asking for theirs if they don’t immediately reciprocate on step 3.
In practice there are many ways this can happen. Here is one reasonable example:
Did you see the bosses [insert anything, tie, shoes, car, your pick] today. OmG!
[Wait a day or two for any sign that made it back to your boss. Prepare a convincing cover up story in the event he/she/it is a snitch.]
2-4
Our health insurance is terrible isnt it? I swear its like they pick the cheapest option. [Replace the above with any other unpopular opinion depending on how critical the response is of your workplace you can jump immediately to steps 3-4]
I heard a lot of employers like to pay people differently for the exact same work and I dont think thats right. Thats why I want you to know I make Y. If you make less I can help you argue for more. Do you mind sharing your salary too?
You can sometimes just jump straight to step 3 or 4 if you are feeling confident. But do be aware. You can save someone’s job and the boss will corner them in an office and some of them will still rat you out. Happened to me personally. The above isnt without risk. But do not be afraid of humans, especially middle management humans. They are usually the weakest people I’ve ever met.
When you’re running a place I want to work for you
“can you believe they only pay us X to do this shit?”
I used to work at a shitty company that banned discussing salaries. I never thought anything about it because it was a call center and I just kinda assumed we had standardised salary across the board. One time when having drinks at a friend’s house who worked with me but had a higher position, I found his payslip lying around and I was making, I shit you not, about 70% more. Fucking hell.
I hope you told them when you left
lol, I told them the second I saw his payslip.
I am terrified everyone in this community doesn’t comprehend the actual problem.
If you’re working for a salary, you have already been robbed.
Ah yes, Marxism. Never fails to deliver interesting but impractical concepts about value creation.
Dividends are impractical?
Is that what they taught you at the NYSE?
I’m not watching a video but based on the title “capitalism is theft” I can guess what it says.
The problem is we can barely get people to understand that the company is not their friend and they have any rights at all.
You can’t teach a child calculus if they can barely do arithmetic. People are fish that don’t realize there’s water. It’s going to be hard to get them to build a space program. A noble goal, but not one with an easy direct path.
I think I first saw this post in 2018.
When I transferred to a particular department, I was very open about salary. I never asked anyone else to be too, but it got people talking and a year later half my team quit to get a 25% salary increase at a competitor. Oopsie!
I don’t regret it. 10/10 Would do it again.
Definitely don’t disagree with the feeeeemale in the meme but also:
Also it’s illegal for them to stop you, talk away.
https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/your-rights/your-rights-to-discuss-wages
This is why unions are usually better, especially the trade unions.
I try and drop subtle hints around the office, like “my family members in unions don’t have this kind of problem” and “friend of mine has a union that got them out of a return to office order”. Feel like I need to go with stronger hints.
“maybe a union might help us? put your email address into this mailing list form if you want to join once I set it up” 👀
Yep. Everyone knows the other person’s pay rate. Heck, you can probably look up most union’s pay scales online even if you’re not a member.
what’s funny is that while the institutional gender pay disparity is mostly gone (at least where i work) - there’s still a couple of dozen ways women get screwed out of money for doing the same work.
my favorite case from this year was with data engineer position - simple middle level position Pandas Airflow Databricks stack, 3k median. two candidates hired - same skill level, salary - male 3,5k, females 2,7k - why? if you look strictly at the skill assessment reports - you wouldn’t even be able to tell where is who. so what the fuck is going on? well, if you look at the HR report - dude been showboating and oversharing about his skills all the way for the ladies and that’s good thing that should be rewarded while the lady just laid down the facts as she was asked during the interviews and was deemed distant and not very personable, “she doesn’t seem happy to be here” so to speak therefore she is not that good. fucking literally. and then the very same recruitment and human resources specialists wonder why people leave.
I have a very high suspicion they are pulling same trick to a degree depending on overall background like race too.
probably, but that stuff doesn’t go into reports so i can’t spot it from there.
Unfortunately, people who sell themselves to the company make more than people who don’t. Hell, sometimes just asking for a pay bump during the hire/on-boarding process can make a difference. Two of the last few gigs I’ve been at have given me 5-10k more a year simply because I laid out my creds and asked for the high end of the scale when I probably would have been given the mid range if I didn’t ask and justify it.
Many people don’t understand that you’re selling yourself to the company, and they’re buying your time and labor. If you present a mediocre product, don’t surprise when you get a mediocre offer. I can’t stand it, but not playing the game doesn’t get you anywhere.
the whole “sell yourself to the company” thing is not what it seems. it has less to do with candidates getting around the idea of self-presentation and more with the overall degradation of recruitment and human resources talent pool. there are lots of people who bear the titles but can’t do their jobs properly. and they look for shortcuts and easy decisions. “selling yourself to the company” is one of them. it’s not a knock on the candidate trying to get by, but if the recruiter whose job is to spot that (among other things) can’t spot that - that’s a problem that makes a mess. hell, most companies don’t even have transparent pay scale systems to clearly communicate who gets what and why so the salaries are all over the place for no good reason and it leads to toxicity and disgruntlement.
You’re also assuming recruiters are involved at all, and it’s not just HR and a hiring manager looking over resumes, which doesn’t match my experience at all. There’s also the explosion of hyper specialization in job roles, so a lot of HR drones can’t do much more than look for buzzwords and see if they think your personality will fit the org.
Just about every job I’ve had was either via resume or word of mouth, and in both cases, there’s not really someone between me and the interview process to handle those items you called out. So selling myself was how I both got the job and pay bumps. The one recruiter I used was good and put me in with a good job that was a good fit (and had a public pay range), and I still sold myself to the company to hit the high end of the range (a guy hired after me makes less than me in the same position, but has a lower skill set).
Selling yourself makes you more money, recruiter or not. It’s fine to blame the system for its failures, but the candidate needs to put themselves forward and advocate for themselves. The only time that isn’t needed is when you have something like a union that sets your pay based on seniority/position/tenure, and selling yourself doesn’t change your rate. Any other situation, and you’re selling yourself short.
Like I said before, I hate the game, but I have to play it. And ignoring the need to sell yourself only hurts yourself, even if it does feel icky in the moment.
And I don’t think you’re necessarily wrong about the degredation of the talent pool, but a lot of that is due to the current work landscape being back to the pre-pandemic state where companies have the upper hand in negotiations, leading candidates to spray and pray, targeting jobs they’re not qualified for (since all of the entry level jobs are being taken away). I got my current gig and the golden years after the pandemic (when we actually had the upper hand for like a year or so), and helping my manager interview for another body is painful with how many people are applying for a mid-level job when they’re a better fit for our entry level.
well, sounds like a skill issue on her part at this point.
it’s more of a skill issue on recruiter’s part because you have to cut through bullshit like that. it is less of a problem with dev teams because loudmouths get humbled eventually but it is a huge problem for sales, business development and marketing - it can do a lot of damage. funnily enough - AI tools for candidate screening and chatbot interviews actually help spotting that kind of thing.
