Like a national tell your coworkers your hourly/salary day.
Don’t you already do that? It’s common sense.
I’ll tell you because I encouraged it. You get fired. Your coworkers realize their worth and seek better. You realize it was always meant to crush you and everyone around you into the dirt. You find a dark hole you can’t crawl out of and you learn about the world. You decide you’re sick of it and teach others the lessons you’ve learned. The world slowly becomes a better place, one person at a time. Maybe it gets a little easier for you, too.
I did also, but anonymously via a burner phone. After I left my last company, I texted some people in another dept they were getting shafted compared to everyone else and to do something about it.
I like you.
I got reprimanded by my director with my boss present. I talked to HR which also discouraged me from discussing it. The NLRB person I spoke to when I called basically said that I had a case but good luck filing and winning in court versus a large corporation in the US.
At least my ethics complaint about the director and HR rep both violating federal law and company policy was investigated. No idea what was done with it, but they told me it was investigated.
In Finland everyone can go to the tax office and see the incomes of everyone (with a ~1.5 years delay, i.e. 2023 is the latest today).
I know what my colleagues and friends make. I think the only thing it would affect is, that if I felt that I was making less than I should, I would start looking for a new job.
I’ll let you in on a little secret - it is very common for people to discuss their wages. But doing so can earn you ill will from your employer, and can start workplace drama if someone now feels like they are getting unfairly shafted compared to you when you actually are legitimately doing a better job.
So, people only discuss their wages with - get this - their friends. Yeah, one more reason to not be the asocial, head down, never speaks to anybody guy at work. If you never engage in watercooler talk, or go out to the bar for a couple drinks after work, or never talk to people about your hobbies and interests outside of work, then your coworkers won’t trust you, and therefore won’t tell you sensitive information like their wages.
I’ve basically made a career out of serving and bartending. I took a 5 year break to do the stay at home mom thing but my first job getting back into it loved me at first.
It was a very interesting dynamic because it was my first job outside the city I grew up in but it was like riding a bike and I picked it up and immediately impressed them on the first night I was only supposed to be training.
Problem was was that they started firing my coworkers for the most questionable reasons. Then the trophy wife owner would show up to every court hearing for unemployment with forged signatures on their “policy handbook”. A lot of underhanded tactics were used. One of my very good friends was fired on his birthday.
But everytime they’d give me a raise to placate me so I wouldn’t leave. I could write a novel about that place because that’s how my mind works but I won’t.
Long story short, I responded to a server/bartender Facebook group at one point and mentioned my hourly for serving and for bartending. A coworker happen to see my comment and must have complained. (She couldn’t have ever earned the raises I got even if I got them on merit, but she’s a squeaky wheel and sits on a stool when her patrons need their beverages refreshed and plates cleared)
Boss lady made the mistake of messaging me that “it was agreed that you would not talk about your pay” which wasn’t true. She’d whisper to me that I got another raise but never actually said not to say anything, and also- you don’t get to dictate what I speak about on my own personal Facebook account.
I removed my comment just to unruffle feathers however I saved my boss’s message and linked her the exact federal/state article that forbids her from reprimanding me.
That’s when they tried to get me for minor shit. It was absolutely transparent what they were doing but I recorded everything and kept track of dates, times, incidents, message screenshots.
I saw the writing on the wall though and there was another place that had been wanting to poach me for a good while.
I was planning on fighting them earnestly for unemployment and take a month or two off before I started with the new place but they got desperate when their daytime bartender left so I got matching wages if I put my two weeks in and started ASAP so I did.
It was an absolute blessing. That next place treated me well and I was there for about 6 years until they closed their doors for good. Still miss them. I would have missed my old bosses too, if they didn’t try to do dirty the way they did because I genuinely loved them and I wish there wasn’t that bad blood. I don’t regret anything though. They brought it on themselves being so two faced and underhanded.
I think you’d find bigger imbalances from what we think is the norm.
I talk very openly about my salary and my coworkers theirs. This is despite this being a bit of a taboo in Germany and a lot of employers putting a “no salary discussion” clause in their contract, but that’s unlawful anyway.
What happened is that I realized that I’m a fucking idiot.
I have a very strong suspicion that a large number of people would simply work “less” like “quiet quitting” (I hate that term.)
The majority of people I’ve worked with don’t like asking for raises. It’s not that they don’t think they deserve more, they just have this aversion to going and initiating the conversation. I literally fought for a round of raises for everyone at the factory I work at to be considered because everyone I spoke to said they hadn’t gotten one in ~5 years… I suspect they’ll get envious of the people making more than them, but they won’t have the guts to go ask for what they’re worth and they’ll stew in their envy just working less as retaliation.
I asked for a raise recently. I was laughed at and told that the company doesn’t plan on promoting me to any kind of higher position ever. So now I’m just doing the bare minimum and I’m biding my time until I can find something better.
“Acting your wage”
So this occurred once at work. Basically managment threatened that higher earners would stop getting raises until it balances out. Thing was there was a reason the others weren’t getting raises. Like 8 years no raise is them saying you are ok but leave.
Like they do in Norway?
My salary is well-known. It’s an equality thing to fix on a standard rate scheme. The rate is known, the stepping is known, and the steps are known. Anyone can figure it out.
And, if not, it’s in a yearly report that needs to be released and contains all of that. I could find out how much my entire chain of command makes, at a glance, but I don’t care.
Okay; from the daytime job, at least. The side gig is a little variable.
People that get paid less will get jealous of the ones getting paid more, and start workplace drama against their fellow proletarians.
Sorry but your daydream of an uprising aint happening, people are quick to blame someone within their reach rather than some faceless corporation.
Bullshit. This is the propaganda employers use so employees don’t have information to make educated decisions. There are already industries that have payroll information available to all employees, or even fully publicly available.
The simple fact is most people don’t resent each other for being paid less, they resent the employer exploiting them, as they should.
I just wrote my comment on this particular issue. I had a coworker complain that I made more than them and Boss tried to shame me for it.
Weirdly though I became the manager at my next place and had no problem sitting someone down and telling them why they weren’t making as much as their counterparts and when they’d get their scheduled raise and how they could improve and possibly get a bonus raise based purely on merit.
Some people get salty, some people rise to the occasion. The ones that rise to the occasion are dedicated, they’re receptive to constructive criticism and eager to show you they want to improve. It’s just as much a breathe of fresh air for me to see them so happy that they actually got a raise and I wasn’t just blowing smoke up their asses as it was for them to actually get a raise.
After two raises to two different people I had shown my owner that his money was being put to good use because we got long standing, dedicated employees that went above and beyond. He never questioned it again after that when I proposed a raise for a coworker. Good man, and a good team.
Wrong. I posted my entire pay history on my cube wall with yearly gain adjusted for inflation, 19 years worth of data. It was there for at least ten years and i shared the underlying data freely. No one was mad at me, but they were upset at management.
Local, county, state government employee salaries are public, and they still seems to be running fine for hundreds of years.
Unless…
Unless our brains stop being based on tribal monkey hardware?
Oh bullshit.
Every industry is different. But in a warehouse that I worked at, people tattletale on each other all the fucking time, if your coworkers see you just glancing at your phone for 2 seconds to see the time, you get instantly reported to the supervisor. Like what the actual fuck.
Maybe your industry is different, in which case, good for you. But you don’t know just how insane people are. And that was a unionized place btw, even the union reps are playing sides and favoring some workers over others. If you got on the union rep’s bad side, they won’t even bother to defend you against the company (like they’ll half-ass any obligations they have).
The proletariat, at least in the US, are not united at all.
Removed by mod
edit: I mean, fuckit. Lets use it like a disagree button on Reddit. Dick. I’ll help by putting this one at zero right off the bat. GTFO with your solidarity talk
?
The way to solve this is to pay people fair and equal wages. Union employees all know how much everyone makes (at least my union), and nobody is jealous and starts workplace drama. We might be pissed if someone’s in a higher position than us and therefore getting paid better, but that’s an issue in any workplace.
If someone is getting paid more for the same work (as in, they’re in a higher position so they’re getting paid better), then the employee takes it up with the union who fights on their behalf to improve their salary.
Payment transparency leads to employees having the ability to demand change and argue for themselves.
Unions aren’t a perfect system but there’s a reason they work.
Unions aren’t a perfect system but there’s a reason they work.
I think you misunderstand. Unions aren’t the problem, it’s the spineless useless union reps that don’t adequetly protect the workers. Like he would advocate for those that he’s friends with, but then they have a beef with you for some weird reason and then neglect their duties to help you with stuff. Kinda like politicians in a democracy not representing their constituents. Its not the democracy being a problem, its a people problem.
Tbh, Idk why dipshits get elected as the union rep, but dumb people exist in the electorate, just as with the union members.
(But I don’t work there anymore so that’s out of my hands, their problem to fix)
#GuillotineParty
Average pay would rise
