Companies will just show you the public chart if you try to negotiate.
Want to fix the problem? Learn how to negotiate your value to a company. This skill comes in handy in pretty much all aspects of life.
Companies don't just give great negotiators whatever number they want. They know how much they're willing to pay for a certain role. I've failed to hire people because they wouldn't take what HR would let me pay. Sucks, but those are existing company problems.
How is making salary numbers public going to change that? They'll still need to find someone to do that job, and if they publish too low a number they won't be able to hire the people capable of doing the job.
When you say in a later post that you made 40% more in your first-out-of-college job compared to a colleague due to your "experience and negotiating skills," I'm skeptical of the "experience" aspect since it was your first job. So I'm all for things that in that case would have put you two both making exactly the same amount. And then if your on-the-job skills are better, yours will go up faster; if they aren't, you aren't getting overpaid just for being better at an unrelated skill set.
To further the anecdotal train I can tell you I have a few first hand examples that prove you wrong: - Due to me negotiating well during the offer stage I received a title bump (to meet mandatory max salary range reqs) and had budget pulled from other open positions to pay for mine as I was now 40% (I'm guessing) above max pay for the position I interviewed for. - Before my latest job I've had one way candid conversations with coworkers (i.e., I know what they make) and I've always been significantly above them (25-40%) for the same level of experience or less.
I'm completely against making salary numbers public for obvious reasons.
They walked away from the offer we gave them instead, as was their right.
In the non-anecdotal part - yes, someone like you would be hurt with this. I consider that a net benefit. Your negotiation skills are not helping you write better software than me or anyone else, but they're redirecting money towards you instead of me.
I distrust organization because I want to be able to make more than people based on skill and output, but I am all in favor of problems at all with measures to tie salary more strictly to output, or to make that more transparent.
Heck, I've even managed people who made considerably more than people at their same title band, despite less experience - it was based on on the job performance, not years of experience or negotiation before being hired. The salary band for the range was wide so that it could accommodate both strong performers and poor ones.
Wrong. The way to fix the problem is to organize. Collective action works.
Why would I want to do that? I already make many multiple times more than my peers due to my specialized skill set.
I remember my first job out of college. Somehow, salaries got leaked and I was making 40% more than my colleague, in the same position (he sat right next to me).
The difference was my experience and negotiating skills.
'Collective action' as you say just adds a middleman that won't do much for me..except prevent me from getting a raise on my own terms.
Again, no thanks.
Collectivism is typically preferred by people below median in whatever metric you are considering.
So, in that sense, OP is still correct - it's beneficial for workers to organize for collective action, so long as you draw the proper boundaries within which that collective action will operate.
I beg to differ. Most companies treat their IT employees as exchangeable cogs. Hell, there's an entire offshoring and h1b industry built around that fact, not to mention local dumpsterfires like Accidenture.
> yet people still act like they're forced to put in 70+ hours a week in a coal mine boggles the mind.
Well, many of us work 80+ hours a week and are happy because they're allowed the honor to work for SpaceX/Facebook/Google/... so yeah.