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Comment by MithrilTuxedo | Hacker News Reader

One thing I was disturbed by going from the US Navy to working privately in software development in Seattle is how much of a secret pay is in the private sector.

You can pretty much look up how much money anyone in the military makes. Base pay is trivial to look up, and all the other allowances (housing, hazard, etc.) can be looked up.

https://www.dfas.mil/militarymembers/payentitlements/militar...

The same is true in the government, AFAIK.

https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...

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AF vet, and frequently frustrated by this taboo. It's so contrary to the interests of everyone except the employer, but folks become visibly uncomfortable whenever talk of comp comes up.

Well, the American folks anyway. I work with a lot of Europeans, and they don't seem to share the norm.

A strong case against being open with the numbers is it that it could limit your ability to negotiate a higher rate with a potential new employer.

In the air force / navy / army etc there is only one employee to choose from so this never comes up.

That's a weak case - friends/colleagues will most probably have 0 effect on negotiations on some new job. As written this hurts everybody except the employer, but if some folks across the pond are dumb enough to play this game, they deserve the effects

I've had multiple employers tell me that it's a firing offense to discuss pay with my coworkers. Most people don't know if that's legal or not however and just remember that HR or the employee handbook said not to discuss what they get paid or they'll be fired.

Europeans are open with their salaries?

European bank. Salaries were confidential and discretionary. Then they adopted a salary grid based on title and business area mostly to reduce the bonus component (a disproportionate amount of the comp was in bonus). Employees were happy, first because it meant a large base pay uplift for pretty much everyone, and because transparency means base pay ceases to be something to discuss about, everyone feels like he is being treated fairly.

Then I believe it triggered all sorts of problems. Front office base salaries is higher than middle office, no one will take a pay cut so it prevented front to middle office moves which is is an undesirable effect. It is also expensive, they liked having the ability to hire more cheaply. They dropped the grid after a couple of years.

But all the time the numbers were confidential (but when there is a grid it’s a matter of minutes before an accurate table circulates).

Some. Brits aren't.

I don’t know about the rest of Europe, but here in Germany people have openly talked about their salary with me in several occasions. Granted, it wasn’t any coworkers, it was always a friend or someone I knew.

In Norway this is an open database which gets published annually and anyone can search in it to see what other people make.

It's not a digital wild-west open style though:

1. You have to authenticate using something which identifies you specifically as a citizen.

2. Another caveat is that people who gets looked up will be notified about that, with information about who it was who looked them up. (so it can't be used for direct covert spying)

That said, this system allows for a certain degree of transparency, and makes it easier for journalists, press, researchers etc to dig into issues such as social inequality.

I understand the motivation (even though I fundamentally disagree with it), but I find this rather inconsistent with issues such as 'the right to be forgotten' and other privacy initiatives put out by the EU.

I can see this one being taken to the EU Court of Justice by someone.

In Finland you can go and check how much somebody else earned and paid taxes. You can’t do this online, must visit the tax office in person.

This is balancing between privacy and transparency of tax system.

I don’t think the EU privacy legislation applies to this kind of public functions.

Norway is not in the EU.

Technically correct is the best kind of correct ;)

Pragmatically correct is better than technically correct :)

Norway will be subject to EFTA court, which is almost de-facto Court of Justice.

Granted, how someone might sue and escalate an case is a different thing altogether.

But they adopt GDPR, nonetheless.

Here in Finland people are somewhat secretive (especially the older generation) about their pay but tax records are public information so you can calculate it from there if you really want to know how much someone is making. Though the system is kept offline on purpose and thus you have to go to the tax office and browse the paper records and take notes.

Keeping the pay secret is kinda puzzling on traditional fields as the salary structure is very rigid on those due to strong unions. Doesn’t apply much in IT though where it is just minimum wage set by unions and you negotiate for (much) more.

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