Wait, who publishes this information, and why? Address/phone is somewhat standard phonebook stuff (or at least, used to be; less so now I guess) but job and salary?!
This principle is why most of the information that our government has is public, but not everything is in a database accessible by anyone on the Internet, but some information is. If I want to know what a private person makes I can call Skatteverket and ask, but this info is not available on the Internet, though some companies provide services for this.
If you have a registration number for a car you can get information about it using the link below, but owner info requires me to login with my bankid (online identity service that most government and banks, etc, use). I just did this and got an email with the owner and owner history within a few minutes. I did it for a Tesla that has BITCOIN as reg number that I've seen before, you can also try it.
https://fu-regnr.transportstyrelsen.se/extweb/UppgifterAnnat...
Why would it be crazy for that to be available for everyone? I genuinely don't get what the big idea is.
I'm not personally much of a fan of private sector salaries, income tax paid, etc. being a matter of public record but it's also not obviously "crazy" either. There are reasonable debates about transparency at the margins and this is a margin.
Think bigger, you are missing the forest for the trees.
It is not about Tom finding out Joe is getting paid 5% more.
It's about Joe finding out his employer took advatage of his inexperienceand lied to him, and everyone in the industry gets paid 2x what he does.
Corporations have a massive data advantage and leverage over you, they know how much everyone is paid, and how much their competitors pay. This data helps level the playing field.
It also helps detect illegal price fixing, breaches of minimum wage, makes plain effectiveness or ineffectiveness of unions, etc. It informs journalism and policy.
Every time you refuse to tell your colleague your salary, you are not helping yourself, you are helping your boss.
For example, seeking new employment your new employer would be able to see your previous salary. That means people who start out in the lower wage markets could have a much harder time improving their salaries.
Not saying either approach is necessarily wrong. But it probably works better in public sector which tends to be very seniority based. In the US, it would breed a lot of resentment towards people who you thought were overpaid relative to yourself for many people.
If I know I am a better employee than you, and you make that much more, if I am unwilling to do anything about it but grumble, that's a personal problem. I would argue that anyone who is willing to stay in a shit situation without trying to remedy said situation (being underpaid and knowing it for a fact) sort of brought those problems on themselves. It's a problem to complain about only if you have tried to fix it and couldn't.
Systematically, it would allow people to see which businesses pay best, where their particular skills would be best reimbursed. Therefore, anyone in that shit situation who wants to grumble would have even more information available to them to be able to shop for jobs.
I still don't see a downside.
Also you don't know you're a better employee than me. You think you are but you may not even be aware of a bunch of stuff I do.
>Also you don't know you're a better employee than me. You think you are but you may not even be aware of a bunch of stuff I do
This is actually still a pro-, in my opinion, on public salary information. If I know you make more and approach the manager, it opens up a line of discussion on expectations versus outcomes versus perceptions. I think it actually makes the process of helping staff improve much easier!
In general default to private is the norm in the US and there isn’t a general sentiment to generally change that with respect to salary, tax returns, etc.