Paycheck transparency

[Rhea]

I've always been bothered by paycheck secrecy. I understand why some employers would want it - trade on ignorance to exploit lowest possible salary to any worker - but I don't understand how anyone could call that honest or desirable in a society.

Do they argue similarly that sales should be handled the same way? You negotiate for the price of a movie ticket and it is revoked if you compare your cost to someone else in the line? How about lunch? or rent? Why not bank interest rates?

No, I don't think secret salaries are good for a workplace or for society. This story shows that it doesn't matter how high up the ladder you go, there remains non-work-quality reasons that employers will try to depress some salaries more than others.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/01/12/3610424/charlize-theron-pay-gap/

I approve of the premise for Obama's executive order to end this practice of paycheck secrecy.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/04/06/3423399/obama-secrecy-salary/


What are your thoughts?

 

[Jayjay]

To me voluntarily discussing one's salary should be given. Let me ask it this way: is there any reason why an employer should have the right to demand that the salaries it pays are secret?

To play the devil's advocate, I suppose in some contract or provision-based pay there is a chance that this enables a loophole to leak business-critical data. For example, if your company is buying some equipment from a supplier, and you know that you paid $1 million for it, and can see that the salesperson who closed the deal got $10,000 bonus, and then later when your competitor buys similar equipment he receives a $5000 bonus. That might tip you off that maybe your competitor got a better deal than you, which in turn would harm the supplier.

 

[Bronzeage]

Paycheck secrecy, or confidentiality, is standard procedure in the US. It's generally covered by the "none of your business" clause in the social contract.

I spent most of my working life in business where my pay was based on productivity, and production was public knowledge. It only took a little arithmetic to convert the numbers to money. Even there, management did not want employees to talk about their pay grade. It leads to many embarrassing questions for incompetent managers. Why shouldn't a manager be able to justify the pay level of any employee, with the facts. It's just a matter of applying the employees skills and production to the pay scale standard. There has never been a surplus of smart managers, and pay check secrecy is just one of the many tools which make a less than smart manager's job a little easier.

It helps to remember, a manager's pay depends upon what the pay scale of the people below him.
When I was young, I worked in a shop that used the "team system." This meant 5 men worked as a group and at the end of the day, their labor hours were divided by five. Each man was paid a different rate. The idea was to have a range of skills from minimum to master level. The real idea was to use the higher skills of the master level technicians to supervise and supplement the lower skilled technicians. For this program to work, the average pay of the team had to be below a certain lever and each person on the team was locked into their pay level. In my first year as a #3 man, I had taken a lot of training and had greatly increased my skill range and productivity quite a bit. I was expecting at least a dollar an hour pay raise, but I got only 25 cents. The reason was simple. I had been started at 25 cents below the maximum pay for a #3 man. I was at my limit, until a #2 man lost his job. My actual production was secondary to the bookkeeping. I stayed there another month. When they asked why I was leaving, I told them I couldn't make it through another Christmas on the money they paid.

 

[bradw]

It would have to be done openly and for everyone.

About 25 years ago I mentioned my salary to a friend who worked in the same office. It was against what my family had always told me, but I figured he's a friend, he won't try to harm me.

What did he do? Spread that information around. Suddenly there was talk that Brad made too much. Instead of having the balls to say "I'm not making enough!!", he decided to make me a scapegoat.

NOTE: I've never received anything beyond a cost-of-living raise.

I considered punching him in the head. Real hard.

Fortunately there was a round of raises for those complaining, and as far as I know, no negative consequences for me. I've continued to get the minimum cost-of-living raise when it is offered. This has always met with my view of my abilities and I've never felt cheated, nor would I feel cheated if others who are more productive would get significantly higher wages.

So if you eliminate paycheck secrecy, do it for everyone simultaneously. If there is paycheck secrecy, it might pay to keep your mouth shut.

 

[ksen]

Paycheck secrecy, or confidentiality, is standard procedure in the US. It's generally covered by the "none of your business" clause in the social contract.

I don't see anything wrong with having a regulation in place that says if you have X number of employees, say 50, you have to publish your job titles and pay scales for each job title. That way no names are attached but people know up front that if you get promoted to a certain position that this is how much the company will pay you. It leaves no more room for pay gaps for whatever reason.

It helps to remember, a manager's pay depends upon what the pay scale of the people below him.

Maybe 40 years ago. It's pretty apparent business has been moving away from this model for quite some time.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Paycheck secrecy, or confidentiality, is standard procedure in the US. It's generally covered by the "none of your business" clause in the social contract.

With the exception of public employees where they are often published.

 

[Under the Rose]

When working in a union shop, there are no real secrets because the collective agreement is a public document and the wage scales are boldly printed for all the world to see. Most people hire on at a base rate and move along the progression table based on the number of hours they work with increases at regular intervals.

That being said, management has the discretion to hire a new employee and place them into a wage scale commensurate with their previous job experience which may bring offense to some who have worked there for longer yet may be making less money. They might even have equal or more experience yet did not negotiate this advantage when they hired on. They may not have realized this was an option or they may have really needed the job, making their negotiating position weak. This does not preclude them negotiating after the fact but many people do not know how to do this.

Our society still tends to use the pay scale as a crude measure of a person's worth and while this is wrong on so many levels and bears no correlation to the facts of the matter, it still can have the effect of creating dissention and rivalry. It used to be one of the three 'don'ts' of polite conversation, those being money, religion and politics.

 

[ksen]

Paycheck secrecy, or confidentiality, is standard procedure in the US. It's generally covered by the "none of your business" clause in the social contract.

With the exception of public employees where they are often published.

And aren't public employees often accused of being overpaid?

I wonder if making the employer publically declare what each job will get paid forces them to go high and removes some of their negotiating power that allows them to pay people who just don't like to negotiate less money?

 

[Malintent]

Would all of you that have posted their opinion that salary information should be 'public' information please also post your job title, state of employment, company name, annual salary (including bonuses and incentives), and all other employer-provided benefits, for us to review, fully scrutinize, and discuss?

Thank you in advance.

 

[ksen]

Mine's already public information.

What's your point?

 

[Rhea]

Would all of you that have posted their opinion that salary information should be 'public' information please also post your job title, state of employment, company name, annual salary (including bonuses and incentives), and all other employer-provided benefits, for us to review, fully scrutinize, and discuss?

Thank you in advance.

Mine's published in the newspaper every year.
Moreover, in my former private sector job, as a woman in a male-dominated field, it would absolutely be to my advantage to do so.

 

[Trausti]

Would all of you that have posted their opinion that salary information should be 'public' information please also post your job title, state of employment, company name, annual salary (including bonuses and incentives), and all other employer-provided benefits, for us to review, fully scrutinize, and discuss?

Thank you in advance.

Mine's published in the newspaper every year.
Moreover, in my former private sector job, as a woman in a male-dominated field, it would absolutely be to my advantage to do so.

Presumably you work for a public employer, so the taxpayer has a right to know what they're paying you. Public disclosure of public wages also helps to mitigate against corruption and waste. But a private employer is just that, private. If it's a publicly traded company, the compensation of its management is disclosed annually in filings to the SEC. Otherwise, it's none of your business.

 

[ksen]

Public disclosure of public wages also helps to mitigate against corruption and waste.

Private companies don't have to worry about corruption and waste?

 

[Rhea]

Mine's published in the newspaper every year.
Moreover, in my former private sector job, as a woman in a male-dominated field, it would absolutely be to my advantage to do so.

Presumably you work for a public employer, so the taxpayer has a right to know what they're paying you. Public disclosure of public wages also helps to mitigate against corruption and waste.

Because private companies don't need mitigation of corruption (especially discriminatory) or waste. Or rather, that profits override the need for this? Why do I as a taxpayer have a right to know how my money is being spent but I as a shareholder don't?

But really WHY does the taxpayer have a "right" to know my (public sector) salary? Can't the department negotiate better if it is not public and thence save taxpayer money? Why is it useful to private but not to public, in your opinion.

But a private employer is just that, private. If it's a publicly traded company, the compensation of its management is disclosed annually in filings to the SEC. Otherwise, it's none of your business.

This is what enabled the system that discriminated against Lily Ledbetter for 20 years. So we should keep it? That's your argument?

My post is about the harm that comes from keeping it secret. Do you have any thoughts on that?

 

[Trausti]

Public disclosure of public wages also helps to mitigate against corruption and waste.

Private companies don't have to worry about corruption and waste?

Corruption and waste of taxpayer's money. Unless you're an investor in a business, how that business allocates its funds has nothing to do with you.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

I've found transparency to be really useful in determining if I will apply for certain jobs. Why should I take a marginal managerial job if i have to work 10 more hours a week for the same pay?

- - - Updated - - -

Private companies don't have to worry about corruption and waste?

Corruption and waste of taxpayer's money.

And it actually indicates such? Salaries will not show this. The corrupt aren't going to report it on the paycheck.

 

[Trausti]

But really WHY does the taxpayer have a "right" to know my salary? Can't the department negotiate better if it is not public and thence save taxpayer money?

Because they pay it. Whether or not a current tax, or a proposed new tax, is meritorious depends (at least to the informed voter) on how the government presently spends the money it already receives.

 

[laughing dog]

Mine's published in the newspaper every year.
Moreover, in my former private sector job, as a woman in a male-dominated field, it would absolutely be to my advantage to do so.

Presumably you work for a public employer, so the taxpayer has a right to know what they're paying you.

So, the interested public could ask. Publishing the compensation is done primarily to feed the anti-gov't people and morons. Notice the prices paid for supplies, etc... are not published.

Public disclosure of public wages also helps to mitigate against corruption and waste.

Bullshit.

 

[ksen]

Private companies don't have to worry about corruption and waste?

Corruption and waste of taxpayer's money. Unless you're an investor in a business, how that business allocates its funds has nothing to do with you.

Investor's aren't told what the payscales are for anyone below upper management. Shouldn't payscales be in the corporation's annual report in order to protect the shareholders from corruption and waste? It's their money that's being spent (actually it's not but that's the game we're playing when we say shareholders "own" the company).

How does publishing pay scales for government employees protect from corruption and waste?

- - - Updated - - -

But really WHY does the taxpayer have a "right" to know my salary? Can't the department negotiate better if it is not public and thence save taxpayer money?

Because they pay it. Whether or not a current tax, or a proposed new tax, is meritorious depends (at least to the informed voter) on how the government presently spends the money it already receives.

Maybe you should take the keyboard away from the monkey in your avatar.

 

[Rhea]

But really WHY does the taxpayer have a "right" to know my salary? Can't the department negotiate better if it is not public and thence save taxpayer money?

Because they pay it. Whether or not a current tax, or a proposed new tax, is meritorious depends (at least to the informed voter) on how the government presently spends the money it already receives.

(I edited in my post after you replied - doesn't change the meaning but asks the follow-on question...)

So good and fine and why do you not see that this applies to private companies as well. Corruption in our society is a scourge at all levels, whether we pay directly through taxes or indirectly through discrimination.