[adg001]

If I were an Intel employee I would never accept a pay cut "justified" by the company's willingness to pay dividends. Investors get dividends when the management creates a reasonable amount of profits, not when employees have to waive their dues to do investors a favor.

[int_19h]

It's a textbook example of how owners of capital can extract economic rent from wage workers they hire to utilize that capital to produce something valuable. The whole point of any for-profit business that is not worker-owned is to "do investors a favor" with the money obtained by paying workers less than market value of the goods they produce.

[adg001]

No. Employees are neither VCs, nor credit institutions, nor social benefactors, nor non-profit, nor pro-bono volunteers. They work for a wage – And, yes, first hired that joined the ranks of executives with a vetted interest in the company (e.g. stock options) are already something other. Paying the wage is an obligation, if the employers want the work to be provided. Risks – and the associated rewards - are primarily with the investors. A work culture that shifts the risks onto workers has to be rethought.

[robocat]

> paying workers less than market value of the goods they produce

Have you ever owned a business? If employees got paid the value they produce, why would any business bother to exist?

If you want to get paid the value you produce: start a co-op; join a co-op; start contracting; or become a founder. Stop whinging, and do something about it. So many employees choose to work for a business - it is a transaction where they get paid and the business makes money, and both are usually better off for it.

I too dislike seeing employees get taken advantage of, but “fixing” capitalism is not trivial.

[caskstrength]

> If I were an Intel employee I would never accept a pay cut "justified" by the company's willingness to pay dividends.

Maybe they intentionally want to cause some attrition with this move without announcing additional layoffs? It is kinda win-win for them since they both save money on payroll and don't do explicit layoff with pay severances, risk of lawsuits, etc.

Obviously such approach can cause "dead sea effect", but they either don't care or assume it won't happen.

[adg001]

Yes, this is a tactic some companies resort to in order to incentive resignations. However, as you correctly highlight, this typically results in a loss of talents. AFAIK, Intel is already experiencing challenging times. Attracting – and retaining – new talents is especially hard to do, when the job marketplace learns about this peculiar work culture that prioritises paying dividents to talent retention. I would be very happy to be proven mistaken, for the sake of friends working at Intel.