The lack of worker solidarity in tech is really astounding.
I've been in this industry for almost 20 years and have been trying to instill some sense of it in every workplace I worked. Some decades ago it really seemed that tech workers felt like they were just tech moguls that hadn't made it yet, any kind of labour protection was looked at as "stifling innovation".
Only lately I've seen people listen to me when I bring up that if you depend on a salary you're on the same side as 99% of other people, no matter you have a run away of 6 months saved, if you lose your job for 6-12 months and will be fucked by it you should have solidarity with others in the same spot or worse.
Trying to bring up class struggles used to be mocked in the tech scene, I feel that people are slowly waking up though, the latest layoffs definitely got me surprised about some folks I know finally understanding what that means.
I don't even understand how they would be against something that benefits them personally. I wonder if it's the mentality that "one day" they would become the IT moguls that own one of these companies, and wouldn't want this to disadvantage them?
> Tech people are doomed not by AIs, but by lack of solidarity, raw greed and lack of long term vision.
I see the same.
If there would be an "IT people"'s union it would be likely one of the most powerful organizations on this planet—as verbatim nothing in business works without computers these days (which need to be constantly operated and maintained by some).
But even mentioning the idea of such an union will give you instant backlash, up to pure hatred. Even in the EU where unions in general are seen as mostly positive by the majority of people. (But for some reasons not the IT crowd).
Having worked at just-below-FAANG companies with a surely above average oversight on how compensation strategy works, let me summarize my experience:
We, as a company already know how much our competitors pay for a given role as everyone in the industry is buying and selling statistical data on their compensation structure through 3rd party agencies.
Therefore, we can and do intentionally target, which salary band our positions should fall to in the broader market.
You have absolutely no way to negotiate your base salary above the band which was already known when we created the position.
There could still be substantial differences, as even mid level roles have 30%+ difference in band limits.
You can however, have the position to be upgraded or downgraded if certain circumstances met, but that's a new position with new salary ranges.
These regulations likely increase employee leverage, but to which extent, hard to tell. You should care about your total compensation anyway and neither cash bonus, nor equity is covered in the disclosure, although especially for senior positions, those are very substantial part of your compensation.
I've had folks hard quit at previous companies as soon as they find out how big a difference between their pay and new hires. We are talking about £20k+.
This would be extremely useful during annual reviews and other events during your tenure at an organisation not just at hiring time.
> You have absolutely no way to negotiate your base salary above the band which was already known when we created the position
I don't actually want to negotiate the base salary, but I want to know before hand if all the time invested in interviews and the risk taken when switching jobs is worth it for me.
> You should care about your total compensation anyway and neither cash bonus, nor equity is covered in the disclosure, although especially for senior positions, those are very substantial part of your compensation.
No, because equity and all the other benefits besides the base salary are most of the time at the company's whim - I might or not receive them and I'll have only the freedom to choose between options offered by the company, not real freedom.
> You should care about your total compensation anyway and neither cash bonus, nor equity is covered in the disclosure, although especially for senior positions, those are very substantial part of your compensation.
Even if you do get a bonus or equity as part of your TC, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to get anything for it. I've had options several times that ended up worthless as well as bonuses that were never paid or partially paid due to nebulous company-wide performance metrics.
Unless you're working for a very well established tech company, ideally public, I'd give those parts of your TC a discount to what's written in your contract.
> You should care about your total compensation anyway and neither cash bonus, nor equity is covered in the disclosure, although especially for senior positions, those are very substantial part of your compensation.
Most people outside of the tech-sector will never see any bonus, equity, etc. besides their normal salary.
There is an interesting side effect here.
Salaries throughout EU vary a lot. This will give people chance to better understand the salary differences between countries.
I doubt it. It'll be apples and oranges. Can't even compare salaries between companies in many countries because a salary isn't expressed as a single amount. It's a combination of some gross periodic amount, a random collection of benefits which differs from employer to employer, and even "the same" benefits can have radically different values (e.g. health insurance from provider A instead of provider B).
There's no way for candidates to derive the real value from such a complex offer, let alone compare it to other offers. I imagine employers would like to keep it that way.
When comparing across countries, you'll also have to factor in how things are taxed in said countries and what you get in return for those taxes.
Realistically the gross salary has very little bearing in the net salary between EU countries. Taxation, social contributions and health care deductions at source are vastly different.
I'm all for salary transparency, but I also miss the days when every tech company would have a single "Software Engineer" job posting on their board, and if you liked their vibe you'd apply for it. If they liked you in return, you were in. Everything else (your job title, seniority, salary, stock, what team and product you were actually going to work on, whether they had open headcount or not) were all just minor details that could be figured out later. And this wasn't just some tiny startup thing – companies like Google and Facebook were proud of this hiring process.
All of the laws and expectations around hiring today have made this model impossible to maintain. What exactly does this position entail? How much will the candidate get paid? What team is it for? How many open positions does the company have in total right now? What is the average salary for all of them? You have to answer all of this and more before you can even think of hiring someone new. The old response of "we just hire as many smart people as we can find and pay them what we think they are worth" doesn't cut it anymore.
That model works for people with super high mobility: if you can afford to take a job, put efforts I to it for a few months, see if it pans out, and get out depending on how it goes, it's a good model.
If you have a family and a mortgage and need a pretty good idea of what they're offering because you can't afford to take stab a three or four jobs randomly and leave them if it doesn't work out.
Basically I see your model as perfect for newly graduates and freelancers, and pretty tough for everyone else.
In a way, these kind of openings still exist, they're basically consulting roles or internships.
The unfortunate reality is that it's really difficult for the employees themselves to make sure that everyone is being paid equitably in a situation like that. At least with (reasonably sized) salary ranges, people will have a general feel of where they are - and then it's also easier to do other analysis, e.g. "does the company, for some reason, only ever promote men?"
The whole women perspective is ridicolous. I subscribe to the pov that there is no pay gap between sexes sprouting from hateful discrimination.
But this will be great for Italy because a huge problem of our labor market is that salary is considered something dirty. This law may create a better culture. I hope so.
> But this will be great for Italy because a huge problem of our labor market is that salary is considered something dirty
Same for Cyprus and Poland.
I am very open about my salary on purpose, and i keep telling my friends to talk about theirs with their co workers at least so that they don’t get the short end of the stick.
The pay gap exists because women tends to negociate less. And in male-dominated fields (fields that on average, pay more), they tend to be less outspoken, thus less visible, and as every dev here know, at least 50% of all promotions are based on visibility/performative work and not real skills.
This law won't change anything for the wage gap (which is smaller and smaller are companies tends to promote less internally and hire external management).
> But this will be great for Italy because a huge problem of our labor market is that salary is considered something dirty
Truly. Employees being termed "dependents" of the company is a big tell on Italy's work culture. I can also vouch for the toxicity of the Brazilian labor market. Every middling manager carries on like a petty feudal lord...
From the article, it isn't clear whether a pay range of minimum wage to 1 million euros would be in compliance with this new rule. This is an actual tactic that many US employers have used to follow the letter but not the spirit of salary transparency laws.
It's not clear, because the details don't exist yet. There is only a directive that requires the member states change their national laws within a few years. There will likely be at least 27 different interpretations of the directive, which will all evolve in response to the specific circumstances in each member state.
Many countries also have informal mechanisms of enforcement. For example, businesses may have learned that it's often better to comply with the spirit of the law voluntarily. That way the final regulations will be more flexible and reasonable than by forcing the government to spell out the details explicitly. Or there may be strong unions, in which case many issues may be effectively decided in discussions between unions, businesses, and the government. If businesses burn too much political capital on a minor issue, they will have less influence on bigger issues.
I have also seen them spelled out in massive walls of text. Petty as fuck.
Carefully scan the disclaimer section at the bottom for:
> Colorado, New York City, California, and Washington Candidates Only. The salary range for this position is seventy thousand dollars to one hundred forty-seven thousand five hundred dollars.
EU is perfectly ok with issuing fines to smartasses who abide by the word of law but violate the spirit of it. Like the whole iPhone USB debacle and how Apple got warned again and again when they announced they were trying to go around the requirements in "smart" ways
You don't even need to be that hostile for this to be... difficult. I've seen salary bands for a specific role + level to be pretty wide - like 90k-150k. And then there's where you might be willing to accept mid level to principal dev - should you just publish a range where the upper is multiples of the lower? What's that really helping?
I'm all for more transparency, especially when it helps to equal out the power inbalance in employer to employee, but these attempts seem rough.
There's lot of poorly paying (and very mediocre) companies who must be a tad worried about that development. I've been very under-compensated by a few employers, but had to put up with all sorts of smoke and mirrors in their review meetings about them "matching market rates" for compensation.
This will cut through that nonsense, and get their compensation "spin" to fact some proveable hard facts.
It would make more sense to publish lowest paid, highest paid, median and average salaries across the entire structure of the company. Plus data about other compensation in the form of bonuses, stock options, etc.
There are already sites that require salary disclosure on submitting an offer: nofluffjobs.com. It doesn't change anything. Companies are posting inflated salary ranges there, higher than normal, higher than anyone will ever get after the real interview, just to make their offer more interesting to look at.
If there's a gap between what men and women get (and I really doubt this gap exists), then this doesn't change absolutely anything; a position will have a salary RANGE bound to it, and the employer will be freely able to give lower salary to women than to men anyway.
What do we think the second order effects of this will be? I think the main effect won't be to equalize mens and womens salaries (though it may help) but it will probably lead to more brain drain and concentration of talent in higher-paying organizations and richer geographies.
My past company had a playbook of simply offering 20-30% above whatever the going rate was in EU countries for remote work. For any offers we put out we had something like a 95% close rate (the big exception was France)
It’s in the right direction, but it will be implemented in 3 years and for companies with more than 100 employees, without specifying limits or edge cases.
Self-publishing salary ranges without intense oversight will likely not properly work unless the following are fully utilized & followed to the letter:
- The company in question can only use salaries of existing roles, with string Levenshtein distance of 3 [0]. If it's a new role within the company, they're mandated to use the government's average salary.
- The company can only use the term "Expect {low_bound} - {high_bound}", where
(low_bound := min(current_salaries_for_role || government_average) * 0.85), and
Any given leeway would inevitably be used by corporations to misadvertise their job postings, so it must be paramount that the possible space & terms available be made extremely strict in anticipation of such abuse.
If you advertise a position with a tight, high salary band, then you are going to get the best candidates (all other things being equal).
The proposed law gives organisations that offer good pay and conditions a stronger competitive advantage in the labour market than they currently have.
This law basically enshrines what has being going on at the top SV companies for years: make it known that you offer high wages, and then tolerate the sharing of wage information by employees (protected under Californian law).
The two reasons I disagree with publishing salaries and "ranges" are that a) the implicit collusion creates mean reversion that disadvantages talent, who can afford to leave and go where they are valued and b) the values behind it presume that a job is something paternalistic granted by a manager in return for supplication, and not due consideration for value offered. Together these create a race to the bottom in office culture, where people optimize to compete not on competence and value, but on debasing themselves and attrition with others.
Sure, if you are doing government work, (which is basically a sinecure anyway) this is fine, but any country that implements it will only ever be a kind of outsourced piecework shop, like a maquilladora or "friendshoring," where the real talent who manages the work and handles the money will be in places with rational incentives.
[+] [-] oblio|3 years ago|reply
Lord knows companies have probably 80% of the leverage in the job market.
Tech people are doomed not by AIs, but by lack of solidarity, raw greed and lack of long term vision.
[+] [-] piva00|3 years ago|reply
I've been in this industry for almost 20 years and have been trying to instill some sense of it in every workplace I worked. Some decades ago it really seemed that tech workers felt like they were just tech moguls that hadn't made it yet, any kind of labour protection was looked at as "stifling innovation".
Only lately I've seen people listen to me when I bring up that if you depend on a salary you're on the same side as 99% of other people, no matter you have a run away of 6 months saved, if you lose your job for 6-12 months and will be fucked by it you should have solidarity with others in the same spot or worse.
Trying to bring up class struggles used to be mocked in the tech scene, I feel that people are slowly waking up though, the latest layoffs definitely got me surprised about some folks I know finally understanding what that means.
[+] [-] blitzar|3 years ago|reply
Their salary is because they are exceptional, other people are not as exceptional and are unworthy of such things.
It isn't a lack of solidarity or greed, its a lack of humility.
[+] [-] anhner|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zwarag|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] still_grokking|3 years ago|reply
I see the same.
If there would be an "IT people"'s union it would be likely one of the most powerful organizations on this planet—as verbatim nothing in business works without computers these days (which need to be constantly operated and maintained by some).
But even mentioning the idea of such an union will give you instant backlash, up to pure hatred. Even in the EU where unions in general are seen as mostly positive by the majority of people. (But for some reasons not the IT crowd).
[+] [-] danjac|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brnt|3 years ago|reply
Let's call it the temporarily embarrassed billionaire syndrome: one day I'll own the factory, as long as I parrot the king.
[+] [-] qthrowayq0909|3 years ago|reply
It seems that a lot of people are for transparency (I certainly am) despite them not being too vocal about it.
[+] [-] igleria|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] th13row|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] compmanager1234|3 years ago|reply
We, as a company already know how much our competitors pay for a given role as everyone in the industry is buying and selling statistical data on their compensation structure through 3rd party agencies. Therefore, we can and do intentionally target, which salary band our positions should fall to in the broader market.
You have absolutely no way to negotiate your base salary above the band which was already known when we created the position. There could still be substantial differences, as even mid level roles have 30%+ difference in band limits. You can however, have the position to be upgraded or downgraded if certain circumstances met, but that's a new position with new salary ranges.
These regulations likely increase employee leverage, but to which extent, hard to tell. You should care about your total compensation anyway and neither cash bonus, nor equity is covered in the disclosure, although especially for senior positions, those are very substantial part of your compensation.
[+] [-] happymellon|3 years ago|reply
This would be extremely useful during annual reviews and other events during your tenure at an organisation not just at hiring time.
[+] [-] ivanovb|3 years ago|reply
I don't actually want to negotiate the base salary, but I want to know before hand if all the time invested in interviews and the risk taken when switching jobs is worth it for me.
> You should care about your total compensation anyway and neither cash bonus, nor equity is covered in the disclosure, although especially for senior positions, those are very substantial part of your compensation.
No, because equity and all the other benefits besides the base salary are most of the time at the company's whim - I might or not receive them and I'll have only the freedom to choose between options offered by the company, not real freedom.
[+] [-] acjacobson|3 years ago|reply
Even if you do get a bonus or equity as part of your TC, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to get anything for it. I've had options several times that ended up worthless as well as bonuses that were never paid or partially paid due to nebulous company-wide performance metrics.
Unless you're working for a very well established tech company, ideally public, I'd give those parts of your TC a discount to what's written in your contract.
[+] [-] looperhacks|3 years ago|reply
Most people outside of the tech-sector will never see any bonus, equity, etc. besides their normal salary.
[+] [-] kalnins|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elric|3 years ago|reply
There's no way for candidates to derive the real value from such a complex offer, let alone compare it to other offers. I imagine employers would like to keep it that way.
When comparing across countries, you'll also have to factor in how things are taxed in said countries and what you get in return for those taxes.
[+] [-] junto|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paxys|3 years ago|reply
All of the laws and expectations around hiring today have made this model impossible to maintain. What exactly does this position entail? How much will the candidate get paid? What team is it for? How many open positions does the company have in total right now? What is the average salary for all of them? You have to answer all of this and more before you can even think of hiring someone new. The old response of "we just hire as many smart people as we can find and pay them what we think they are worth" doesn't cut it anymore.
[+] [-] makeitdouble|3 years ago|reply
If you have a family and a mortgage and need a pretty good idea of what they're offering because you can't afford to take stab a three or four jobs randomly and leave them if it doesn't work out.
Basically I see your model as perfect for newly graduates and freelancers, and pretty tough for everyone else.
In a way, these kind of openings still exist, they're basically consulting roles or internships.
[+] [-] t-writescode|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mejutoco|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toldyouso2022|3 years ago|reply
But this will be great for Italy because a huge problem of our labor market is that salary is considered something dirty. This law may create a better culture. I hope so.
[+] [-] PartiallyTyped|3 years ago|reply
Same for Cyprus and Poland.
I am very open about my salary on purpose, and i keep telling my friends to talk about theirs with their co workers at least so that they don’t get the short end of the stick.
[+] [-] orwin|3 years ago|reply
The pay gap exists because women tends to negociate less. And in male-dominated fields (fields that on average, pay more), they tend to be less outspoken, thus less visible, and as every dev here know, at least 50% of all promotions are based on visibility/performative work and not real skills.
This law won't change anything for the wage gap (which is smaller and smaller are companies tends to promote less internally and hire external management).
Still a fine idea, I'm waiting fir the execution.
[+] [-] froh|3 years ago|reply
possibly the pay gap has other reasons in many companies, yes. and yes it's real.
[+] [-] namaria|3 years ago|reply
Truly. Employees being termed "dependents" of the company is a big tell on Italy's work culture. I can also vouch for the toxicity of the Brazilian labor market. Every middling manager carries on like a petty feudal lord...
[+] [-] bdw5204|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jltsiren|3 years ago|reply
Many countries also have informal mechanisms of enforcement. For example, businesses may have learned that it's often better to comply with the spirit of the law voluntarily. That way the final regulations will be more flexible and reasonable than by forcing the government to spell out the details explicitly. Or there may be strong unions, in which case many issues may be effectively decided in discussions between unions, businesses, and the government. If businesses burn too much political capital on a minor issue, they will have less influence on bigger issues.
[+] [-] nonethewiser|3 years ago|reply
Carefully scan the disclaimer section at the bottom for:
> Colorado, New York City, California, and Washington Candidates Only. The salary range for this position is seventy thousand dollars to one hundred forty-seven thousand five hundred dollars.
https://www.myrocketcareer.com/job-detail-page/16777898/soft...
[+] [-] _v7gu|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yjftsjthsd-h|3 years ago|reply
I would literally pay to see someone look a judge in the eye and tell them that that counted.
[+] [-] gotoeleven|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adrianN|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madeofpalk|3 years ago|reply
I'm all for more transparency, especially when it helps to equal out the power inbalance in employer to employee, but these attempts seem rough.
[+] [-] l3x4ur1n|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fergie|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Simon_O_Rourke|3 years ago|reply
This will cut through that nonsense, and get their compensation "spin" to fact some proveable hard facts.
[+] [-] photochemsyn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] self_awareness|3 years ago|reply
There are already sites that require salary disclosure on submitting an offer: nofluffjobs.com. It doesn't change anything. Companies are posting inflated salary ranges there, higher than normal, higher than anyone will ever get after the real interview, just to make their offer more interesting to look at.
If there's a gap between what men and women get (and I really doubt this gap exists), then this doesn't change absolutely anything; a position will have a salary RANGE bound to it, and the employer will be freely able to give lower salary to women than to men anyway.
[+] [-] flappyeagle|3 years ago|reply
My past company had a playbook of simply offering 20-30% above whatever the going rate was in EU countries for remote work. For any offers we put out we had something like a 95% close rate (the big exception was France)
[+] [-] NKosmatos|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] x-complexity|3 years ago|reply
- The company in question can only use salaries of existing roles, with string Levenshtein distance of 3 [0]. If it's a new role within the company, they're mandated to use the government's average salary.
- The company can only use the term "Expect {low_bound} - {high_bound}", where
(low_bound := min(current_salaries_for_role || government_average) * 0.85), and
(high_bound := max(current_salaries_for_role || government_average) * 1.15)
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levenshtein_distance
Any given leeway would inevitably be used by corporations to misadvertise their job postings, so it must be paramount that the possible space & terms available be made extremely strict in anticipation of such abuse.
[+] [-] fergie|3 years ago|reply
The proposed law gives organisations that offer good pay and conditions a stronger competitive advantage in the labour market than they currently have.
This law basically enshrines what has being going on at the top SV companies for years: make it known that you offer high wages, and then tolerate the sharing of wage information by employees (protected under Californian law).
[+] [-] userbinator|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] switch007|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theonlybutlet|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] motohagiography|3 years ago|reply
Sure, if you are doing government work, (which is basically a sinecure anyway) this is fine, but any country that implements it will only ever be a kind of outsourced piecework shop, like a maquilladora or "friendshoring," where the real talent who manages the work and handles the money will be in places with rational incentives.
[+] [-] snvzz|3 years ago|reply