Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
Infinite Karma
Oct 23, 2004
Good as dead





With the Paycheck Fairness Act being blocked for the umpteenth time last week, I wonder if this niche issue is really hiding a bigger issue.

Studies have indisputably shown that women aren't making as much as men for the same jobs, at least as much as we can statistically adjust the numbers to determine "same jobs". I want Equal Pay for Women as much as the next person, but it seems idiotic to try and pass a law to prohibit a pervasive and subtle cultural ideology that can easily be dodged.

The "teeth" of the latest attempt were to prohibit retaliation for employees discussing wages with each other. It's a noble goal, but retaliation is one of the least enforceable labor rights - any employer with a quarter of a brain is going to trump up a legal cause for firing an employee that they want to retaliate against. And even if an employee is litigious enough to take an employer to court, the remedies are pretty poor.

The hidden issue I mentioned earlier isn't gender discrimination, but wage discrimination of all types. Sometimes peers are paid vastly different salaries, for no reason other than that some have the gumption to ask for more money, or are better at negotiating a higher salary for the same work at hiring time. People are discriminated against based on race, age, attractiveness, and dozens of other factors every day.

Labor spontaneously organizing to bargain for better wages and benefits is extremely rare, so it seems to me that a top-down approach is better to even the playing field. My proposal is this: what if a law made it mandatory that every employee's compensation was openly available to all other employees? From the CEO to the Janitor - wages, salaries, bonus structures, benefits, and perks are plainly listed out. There is a huge cultural taboo (at least in the U.S.) about discussing pay, especially with coworkers, and a law telling us that we should discuss it, especially with the specter of employer disapproval seems pointless.

I'm sure big business would fight tooth and nail to stop this, but what arguments are there to keep these things secret?

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

ColoradoCleric
Dec 26, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

Infinite Karma posted:

or are better at negotiating a higher salary for the same work at hiring time.

How is this necessarily discrimination then?

Mc Do Well
Aug 2, 2008

by FactsAreUseless
There should be a transparent, national paygrade system. This simplifies the tax code and addresses income inequality in one go.

wateroverfire
Jul 3, 2010

Infinite Karma posted:

With the Paycheck Fairness Act being blocked for the umpteenth time last week, I wonder if this niche issue is really hiding a bigger issue.

Studies have indisputably shown that women aren't making as much as men for the same jobs, at least as much as we can statistically adjust the numbers to determine "same jobs". I want Equal Pay for Women as much as the next person, but it seems idiotic to try and pass a law to prohibit a pervasive and subtle cultural ideology that can easily be dodged.

The "teeth" of the latest attempt were to prohibit retaliation for employees discussing wages with each other. It's a noble goal, but retaliation is one of the least enforceable labor rights - any employer with a quarter of a brain is going to trump up a legal cause for firing an employee that they want to retaliate against. And even if an employee is litigious enough to take an employer to court, the remedies are pretty poor.

The hidden issue I mentioned earlier isn't gender discrimination, but wage discrimination of all types. Sometimes peers are paid vastly different salaries, for no reason other than that some have the gumption to ask for more money, or are better at negotiating a higher salary for the same work at hiring time. People are discriminated against based on race, age, attractiveness, and dozens of other factors every day.

Labor spontaneously organizing to bargain for better wages and benefits is extremely rare, so it seems to me that a top-down approach is better to even the playing field. My proposal is this: what if a law made it mandatory that every employee's compensation was openly available to all other employees? From the CEO to the Janitor - wages, salaries, bonus structures, benefits, and perks are plainly listed out. There is a huge cultural taboo (at least in the U.S.) about discussing pay, especially with coworkers, and a law telling us that we should discuss it, especially with the specter of employer disapproval seems pointless.

I'm sure big business would fight tooth and nail to stop this, but what arguments are there to keep these things secret?

It'd be interesting for sure.

Off the top of my head, just throwing that information out there would cause a lot of angst and much of it would be inappropriate bitching about pay differences that are actually justified. It could also be a double-edged sword. If a prospective employer could look at your record and see what you're making / have made it would be more difficult to change jobs and trade up to a higher salary.

Infinite Karma
Oct 23, 2004
Good as dead





ColoradoCleric posted:

How is this necessarily discrimination then?

Because your skill at reading someone's poker face and knowing when you've made the best possible deal, based on hidden information, shouldn't be a requirement for getting good pay?

McDowell posted:

There should be a transparent, national paygrade system. This simplifies the tax code and addresses income inequality in one go.

Are you serious? I'm as left-wing socialist as they come and this sounds impossibly oversimplified.

FADEtoBLACK
Jan 26, 2007
A guaranteed minimum income would help with this as well. You actually don't need to publish how much everyone makes if you just have a regulatory body making sure things are handled well.

ColoradoCleric
Dec 26, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

Infinite Karma posted:

Because your skill at reading someone's poker face and knowing when you've made the best possible deal, based on hidden information, shouldn't be a requirement for getting good pay?

I think wage negotiations are more than just reading a poker face and actually include things like trying to justify to your employer why you deserve more income.

Mc Do Well
Aug 2, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

Infinite Karma posted:

Are you serious? I'm as left-wing socialist as they come and this sounds impossibly oversimplified.

The grade scale and administration would probably be done on the State level, and it would probably also require a mandated site for employers and job seekers.

Infinite Karma
Oct 23, 2004
Good as dead





wateroverfire posted:

It'd be interesting for sure.

Off the top of my head, just throwing that information out there would cause a lot of angst and much of it would be inappropriate bitching about pay differences that are actually justified. It could also be a double-edged sword. If a prospective employer could look at your record and see what you're making / have made it would be more difficult to change jobs and trade up to a higher salary.

This might actually be an unintended point on the plus-side for business.

One of the biggest complaints that businesses have about on-the-job training is that people who get hired and trained promptly leave for greener pastures, so nobody is willing to front the costs to train employees and will only hire overqualified people. Especially for younger employees, changing jobs yearly isn't uncommon, and is by far a bigger source of salary growth than pay raises. Lowering churn would probably be a good thing, especially if pay raises increased as new hires stopped getting hired for more than the existing employees.

ColoradoCleric posted:

I think wage negotiations are more than just reading a poker face and actually include things like trying to justify to your employer why you deserve more income.
It's been my experience that this is more gamesmanship than fact-based justification. You can't know if you deserve more income unless you know what income similar people are paid for similar work.

ColoradoCleric
Dec 26, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

Infinite Karma posted:

It's been my experience that this is more gamesmanship than fact-based justification. You can't know if you deserve more income unless you know what income similar people are paid for similar work.

But now you're making the argument that you deserve the same income as other workers when its the employer's decision on how much you should be paid.

Mc Do Well
Aug 2, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

ColoradoCleric posted:

But now you're making the argument that you deserve the same income as other workers when its the employer's decision on how much you should be paid.

Who decides how much executives should get paid?

'You're worth what you're worth' - Peter Schiff

ColoradoCleric
Dec 26, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

McDowell posted:

Who decides how much executives should get paid?

'You're worth what you're worth' - Peter Schiff

Typically the shareholders.

Mc Do Well
Aug 2, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

ColoradoCleric posted:

Typically the shareholders.

Not all companies are publicly traded, and most shareholders are not particularly active in how the business is run because stocks are primarily investment vehicles used by different firms and funds.

Nice appeal to the myth of shareholder democracy, though.

FADEtoBLACK
Jan 26, 2007

ColoradoCleric posted:

But now you're making the argument that you deserve the same income as other workers when its the employer's decision on how much you should be paid.

The employer isn't deciding how much you should be paid, they are deciding how little they can get away with paying you.

Insurance, retirement benefits, job perks all exist because it's cheaper to offer those perks and pay you less.

ColoradoCleric
Dec 26, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

FADEtoBLACK posted:

The employer isn't deciding how much you should be paid, they are deciding how little they can get away with paying you.

Insurance, retirement benefits, job perks all exist because it's cheaper to offer those perks and pay you less.

Those are all quantifiable benefits in terms of dollars that ultimately sum up to the cost/price an employer is willing/wants to pay for the employees labor.

ColoradoCleric
Dec 26, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

McDowell posted:

Not all companies are publicly traded, and most shareholders are not particularly active in how the business is run because stocks are primarily investment vehicles used by different firms and funds.

Nice appeal to the myth of shareholder democracy, though.

Salaries eat into retained earnings.

Infinite Karma
Oct 23, 2004
Good as dead





ColoradoCleric posted:

But now you're making the argument that you deserve the same income as other workers when its the employer's decision on how much you should be paid.
I'm making the argument that employers do decide how much you get paid, even if they are unfair pricks who can't justify why they are paying people what they pay them. But employees should know if their employers are unfair pricks, and be able to find employment that is under terms that both parties agree is fair. Eventually the unfair pricks won't be able to find employees unless they start treating people better. If you're in favor of market solutions, then lovely employers should lose just like lovely employees do, without a shield of secrecy to protect them from the consequences of their choices.

Mc Do Well
Aug 2, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

ColoradoCleric posted:

Salaries eat into retained earnings.

So it is in the interest of executives to make salaries as low as possible for the rest of the company and then get rewarded for their cost-cutting and hard work.

ColoradoCleric
Dec 26, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

McDowell posted:

So it is in the interest of executives to make salaries as low as possible for the rest of the company and then get rewarded for their cost-cutting and hard work.

It's also in the interest of your voting members but they probably value the CEO more highly than an accountant in terms of driving the company.

Mc Do Well
Aug 2, 2008

by FactsAreUseless
Truly we live in the best of all possible worlds.

esquilax
Jan 3, 2003

Can someone explain how the Equal Pay bill in the news differs from current law? All the news articles say that it prohibits employers from retaliating against employees when they discuss wages or benefits with each other. However, that seems redundant since the NLRA already prohibits that.

Infinite Karma
Oct 23, 2004
Good as dead





ColoradoCleric posted:

It's also in the interest of your voting members but they probably value the CEO more highly than an accountant in terms of driving the company.

Can you explain why this matters in the context of this thread? Is there a rational basis for salaries to be secret, or is your argument just restating that right now they are secret, and that executives and shareholders like it that way?

ColoradoCleric
Dec 26, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

Infinite Karma posted:

Can you explain why this matters in the context of this thread? Is there a rational basis for salaries to be secret, or is your argument just restating that right now they are secret, and that executives and shareholders like it that way?

It's an example of wage negotiation between the employer and employee (be it a worker for the business or the CEO answering to the shareholders).

wateroverfire
Jul 3, 2010

Infinite Karma posted:

I'm making the argument that employers do decide how much you get paid, even if they are unfair pricks who can't justify why they are paying people what they pay them. But employees should know if their employers are unfair pricks, and be able to find employment that is under terms that both parties agree is fair.

That's a weird framing. Employees already find employment under terms they agree are fair, and employers can justify why they are paying people what they pay them. Making all salary information public would make available the differences without making available the justifications. It seems like mostly what that will lead to is a bunch of bitching that JENNY HAS BEEN HERE 2 MONTHS LESS THAN ME BUT SHE MAKES 2K MORE when it's possible Jenny has more important projects, or came from another job making more, is better at her job and more useful, or maybe she negotiated better, etc. No matter what, those justifications will be seen as bullshit by the slighted party and the *rabble rabble* will continue. From an employer's POV that is not in any way worth dealing with and so they keep the info private and try to cut those discussions off when they happen.

Infinite Karma
Oct 23, 2004
Good as dead





wateroverfire posted:

That's a weird framing. Employees already find employment under terms they agree are fair, and employers can justify why they are paying people what they pay them. Making all salary information public would make available the differences without making available the justifications. It seems like mostly what that will lead to is a bunch of bitching that JENNY HAS BEEN HERE 2 MONTHS LESS THAN ME BUT SHE MAKES 2K MORE when it's possible Jenny has more important projects, or came from another job making more, is better at her job and more useful, or maybe she negotiated better, etc. No matter what, those justifications will be seen as bullshit by the slighted party and the *rabble rabble* will continue. From an employer's POV that is not in any way worth dealing with and so they keep the info private and try to cut those discussions off when they happen.

If Jenny is more senior, or has a more demanding set of projects, then it's a good justification for paying her more. A 2K difference between employees makes sense when subjective measures are taken into account. But if Jenny was making twice as much as you, you'd be right to get pissed off when you found out, no? Right now it's a discussion that doesn't happen at all, and I can't think of a better way to get fairer pay than making it transparent that nobody is getting a sweetheart deal.

It's obvious why employers keep the info secret presently. What I don't think is obvious, is what the repercussions would be to make it public.

wateroverfire
Jul 3, 2010

Infinite Karma posted:

If Jenny is more senior, or has a more demanding set of projects, then it's a good justification for paying her more. A 2K difference between employees makes sense when subjective measures are taken into account. But if Jenny was making twice as much as you, you'd be right to get pissed off when you found out, no?

Maybe, maybe not. It depends on the situation and almost no one on the complaining end is going to agree with their boss' decision because that's how people seem work. I think you're right that it's not clear what all the ramifications would be. I tend to think it would not lead to many people making more money, but it might compress pay bands and push compensation into whatever vehicles aren't covered under the disclosure law.

Eldragon
Feb 22, 2003

Infinite Karma posted:

If Jenny is more senior, or has a more demanding set of projects, then it's a good justification for paying her more. A 2K difference between employees makes sense when subjective measures are taken into account. But if Jenny was making twice as much as you, you'd be right to get pissed off when you found out, no? Right now it's a discussion that doesn't happen at all, and I can't think of a better way to get fairer pay than making it transparent that nobody is getting a sweetheart deal.

It's obvious why employers keep the info secret presently. What I don't think is obvious, is what the repercussions would be to make it public.

The number of people who overestimate their worth and abilities probably exceeds the number of people getting sweetheart deals.

Some employees are more productive and work harder than other people; and they deserve to be compensated for it. Imagine two workers, and overachiever Alice and underachiever Bob. Despite Bob and Alice working the same job, Alice gets paid 30% more than Bob.

Bob doesn't really acknowledge Alice's achievements and expects to be paid the same (For simplicity, chalk it up to cognitive dissonance). After all, they work the same job. Bob complains until he gets a pay raise to that of Alice's. Meanwhile Alice, seeing Bob receiving a pay raise, despite the extra work she puts in, no longer has an incentive to work harder, and just lets herself become an underachiever like Bob.

I'm not against the idea of more openness in employee compensation, but I expect it to cause more problems than it would solve.

I also don't like how the concept of preventing employers from retaliating for employees discussing pay got turned into a gender-equality debate. The bill proposed is gender neutral, and seems to me very unlikely to make any kind of dent in the wage-gap. It strikes me as wishful thinking at best.

falcon2424
May 2, 2005

Infinite Karma posted:

If Jenny is more senior, or has a more demanding set of projects, then it's a good justification for paying her more. A 2K difference between employees makes sense when subjective measures are taken into account. But if Jenny was making twice as much as you, you'd be right to get pissed off when you found out, no? Right now it's a discussion that doesn't happen at all, and I can't think of a better way to get fairer pay than making it transparent that nobody is getting a sweetheart deal.

It's obvious why employers keep the info secret presently. What I don't think is obvious, is what the repercussions would be to make it public.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/business/yourtaxes/14disclose.html?_r=0
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100150768/if-tax-transparency-turns-us-into-scandinavians-so-much-the-better/

Tax returns are public in Norway now. And they used to be public in the US.

It seems like Norway has had the kind of debate you'd imagine. There's a paper that publishes the top-earners earnings online. And a privacy debate. Recently, they've moved to requiring that you show some kind of 'need' before looking someone up to stem privacy problems.

ColoradoCleric
Dec 26, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
You could also create a downward effect on salaries unintentionally by showing you could hire someone else for cheaper.

Zwiftef
Jun 30, 2002

SWIFT IS FAT, LOL

ColoradoCleric posted:

You could also create a downward effect on salaries unintentionally by showing you could hire someone else for cheaper.

Wouldn't employers already have all the information on how much their employees are getting paid? What kind of lovely company do you work for?

cafel
Mar 29, 2010

This post is hurting the economy!

Eldragon posted:

The number of people who overestimate their worth and abilities probably exceeds the number of people getting sweetheart deals.

Some employees are more productive and work harder than other people; and they deserve to be compensated for it. Imagine two workers, and overachiever Alice and underachiever Bob. Despite Bob and Alice working the same job, Alice gets paid 30% more than Bob.

Bob doesn't really acknowledge Alice's achievements and expects to be paid the same (For simplicity, chalk it up to cognitive dissonance). After all, they work the same job. Bob complains until he gets a pay raise to that of Alice's. Meanwhile Alice, seeing Bob receiving a pay raise, despite the extra work she puts in, no longer has an incentive to work harder, and just lets herself become an underachiever like Bob.

I'm not against the idea of more openness in employee compensation, but I expect it to cause more problems than it would solve.

I also don't like how the concept of preventing employers from retaliating for employees discussing pay got turned into a gender-equality debate. The bill proposed is gender neutral, and seems to me very unlikely to make any kind of dent in the wage-gap. It strikes me as wishful thinking at best.

In this scenario the boss points out that Alice is 30% more effective than Bob because of the way she handled x, y and z projects. They offer Bob a raise of x where x is whatever they feel is worth to retain him. He can then take it or leave it. You know, a proper negotiation. In your scenario why would the company feel compelled to match Bob's salary to Alice's if they felt he wasn't worth it? If they are willing to pay that much to keep him then clearly he is worth it.

I think the much more plausible and commonplace scenario is one in which Alice doesn't know what Bob makes and thus can't accurately judge her worth to the company in comparison. Whatever offer they make involves a leap of faith in which she tries to determine her worth with no outside reference points, allowing the company to pay her a much closer salary to Bob.

I know anecdotes aren't data, but I actually have a friend who found out that his salary was several percentage points lower than someone who joined the company at the same time as him and who came from the same educational background. When he brought this up management quickly moved to rectify the 'unfortunate error, which they don't know how it could have happened.' In a lot of companies there are illegal corporate policies against talking about pay which would have kept my friend in the dark and allowed the company to short him several thousand dollars a year simply because he had no way to fine tune what he was worth.

edit: Really if you subscribe to Free Market economics at all, then allowing people to discuss salary or even mandating the release of all salary information makes sense because the system relies on the actors having accurate knowledge. All preventing the flow of information does is give bosses an unfair advantage in bargaining, which is why a lot of companies are so quick to act against people who do so.

cafel fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Apr 15, 2014

twodot
Aug 7, 2005

You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

esquilax posted:

Can someone explain how the Equal Pay bill in the news differs from current law? All the news articles say that it prohibits employers from retaliating against employees when they discuss wages or benefits with each other. However, that seems redundant since the NLRA already prohibits that.
The Paycheck Fairness Act that was recently voted on does a lot of things, but in addition to other things, it also broadens the nonretaliation section of existing law:
http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/2199/text

esquilax
Jan 3, 2003

twodot posted:

The Paycheck Fairness Act that was recently voted on does a lot of things, but in addition to other things, it also broadens the nonretaliation section of existing law:
http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/2199/text

Well I guessed that, but in what way does it broaden non-retaliation? I have a hard time reading the law itself because it's written in "striking" and "inserting" language. Is it a law of substance or is it a political football? What are we losing by not passing it?

vvv thanks

esquilax fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Apr 16, 2014

twodot
Aug 7, 2005

You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

esquilax posted:

Well I guessed that, but in what way does it broaden non-retaliation? I have a hard time reading the law itself because it's written in "striking" and "inserting" language. Is it a law of substance or is it a political football? What are we losing by not passing it?
Here's my lay understanding of what it does broadly:
Narrows the employer response to claims of discrimination, by requiring the employer to demonstrate the difference in pay is somehow job related and necessary and further that that defense doesn't work if the employee can demonstrate an alternative pay scale that serves business needs.

Broadens the the Fair Labor Standards Act's nonretaliation clause to apply to wage discussion. I can see why you might think this does nothing, what's happening here is that NLRA makes prohibiting wage discussion an unfair labor practice, but resolving an unfair labor practice involves going through NLRB process. The nonretaliation clause in the FLSA makes retaliation additionally unlawful, and so subject to different penalties.

Increases penalties for violating the FLSA.

Appropriates 15 million to fund various agencies for various programs that encourage training, research, and education about pay disparity. Of note is a grant for programs that train women in negotiation skills. Also it directs certain Secretaries to commission a report about certain of these programs.

icantfindaname
Jul 1, 2008


Aren't there already laws on the books guaranteeing the ability to discuss wages? Obviously they're unenforced, but it would probably take as much political effort to get new laws passed as it would to greatly step up enforcement and policing of current labor law.

Eldragon
Feb 22, 2003

cafel posted:

In this scenario the boss points out that Alice is 30% more effective than Bob because of the way she handled x, y and z projects. They offer Bob a raise of x where x is whatever they feel is worth to retain him. He can then take it or leave it. You know, a proper negotiation. In your scenario why would the company feel compelled to match Bob's salary to Alice's if they felt he wasn't worth it? If they are willing to pay that much to keep him then clearly he is worth it.

I think the much more plausible and commonplace scenario is one in which Alice doesn't know what Bob makes and thus can't accurately judge her worth to the company in comparison. Whatever offer they make involves a leap of faith in which she tries to determine her worth with no outside reference points, allowing the company to pay her a much closer salary to Bob.

I agree that your scenario is the more rational one. But people just are not rational. Petty jealousy, self-doubt, inflated sense of self-worth, etc. would rapidly culminate into a lot of infighting and arguments over pay. Eventually management would just have to pay everyone the same just to make the complaining come to an end.

Again, I do think more information is a good thing (and I do like outlawing retaliation for sharing pay info), but I don't think total transparency is the answer. Something more akin to "This is your pay, and this the average pay for people in your position" would work out a lot better.

Paycheck Fairness Act really seems like a hodgepodge of several different goals, presented as separate bills individually they would probably pass. But the manner it is written turns it into a giant "gender politics" issue that is primarily written to generate headlines (and thus votes) for the 2014 elections.

Mirthless
Mar 27, 2011

by the sex ghost

Infinite Karma posted:


Labor spontaneously organizing to bargain for better wages and benefits is extremely rare, so it seems to me that a top-down approach is better to even the playing field. My proposal is this: what if a law made it mandatory that every employee's compensation was openly available to all other employees? From the CEO to the Janitor - wages, salaries, bonus structures, benefits, and perks are plainly listed out. There is a huge cultural taboo (at least in the U.S.) about discussing pay, especially with coworkers, and a law telling us that we should discuss it, especially with the specter of employer disapproval seems pointless.

I'm sure big business would fight tooth and nail to stop this, but what arguments are there to keep these things secret?

Telling people how much you make in my workplace will get you fired. They told us that on day 1, since we were hired in at a higher rate than other people doing essentially the same job. They were very up front about how they didn't want fairness in the workplace when it came to wages.

I don't even work for some small bullshit outfit, I work for Hewlett Packard.

cafel
Mar 29, 2010

This post is hurting the economy!

Eldragon posted:

I agree that your scenario is the more rational one. But people just are not rational. Petty jealousy, self-doubt, inflated sense of self-worth, etc. would rapidly culminate into a lot of infighting and arguments over pay. Eventually management would just have to pay everyone the same just to make the complaining come to an end.

Again, I do think more information is a good thing (and I do like outlawing retaliation for sharing pay info), but I don't think total transparency is the answer. Something more akin to "This is your pay, and this the average pay for people in your position" would work out a lot better.

Paycheck Fairness Act really seems like a hodgepodge of several different goals, presented as separate bills individually they would probably pass. But the manner it is written turns it into a giant "gender politics" issue that is primarily written to generate headlines (and thus votes) for the 2014 elections.

Well even if I were to agree that things would play out your way, I fail to see how uniform gains in employee salary offset by decreased profits is a bad thing. Employees forcing employers to pay them as much as they possibly can instead of employers separating employees in order to get away with paying them as little as they possibly can is like music to my ears.

Unless you're going to try to take this in the direction that this will lead to widespread bankruptcy, in which case I thing your taking the irrationality of management just a few steps too far.

wateroverfire
Jul 3, 2010

cafel posted:

Well even if I were to agree that things would play out your way, I fail to see how uniform gains in employee salary offset by decreased profits is a bad thing. Employees forcing employers to pay them as much as they possibly can instead of employers separating employees in order to get away with paying them as little as they possibly can is like music to my ears.

Why do you think it would happen this way, rather than compressing the top of the pay band because employers "want to preserve an appearance of fairness" or whatever?

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

cafel
Mar 29, 2010

This post is hurting the economy!

wateroverfire posted:

Why do you think it would happen this way, rather than compressing the top of the pay band because employers "want to preserve an appearance of fairness" or whatever?

Because they need to retain their best talent. If they're not paying their most effective employees what they're worth than those employees can always find a company with more effective management that will pay them that much.

And I'm sure that there would be instances of lovely management that wouldn't be able to handle their employees and continually lose their top talent, but then again those kind of lovely working environments already exist. Legislating stuff in a such a way as to make things easier for incompetent management or greedy management doesn't sound like as good of an option as legislating stuff in order for more transparency and a better worker bargaining position.

  • Locked thread