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Comment by frostwarrior | Hacker News Reader

I had an interview a few days ago and I asked something similar. I asked about the possibility to travel to the US to greet my coworkers and work alongside them.

They said they won't raise my salary and they expect me to stay in my region (Latin America). They also said that if I go to the US or Europe, it would be though to live there with my remote salary.

It felt somewhat insulting tbh. As if they said "we want you as disposable cheap labor, not to become a part of the company" directly upfront.

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Exactly. Alienation from the fruits of your labor. It's disgusting we expect people to tolerate it, and act like it's not a totally optional choice by management to exploit labor resources to get a better return on investment for the already wealthy. A modern take on colonization.

On the other hand, the only reason the company hired someone overseas was to save money. They would not have even considered these candidates if they weren't hugely cheaper. Instead, the company would have hired from the local labor market instead.

What the submitter should be asking themselves, is whether they can pull a higher wage working from their current location with any other company. If they can do that, they should. If they can't, and it's likely that they cannot because most companies are operating similarly, then they're getting a fair market rate for their situation. That's the free market.

Well, we agree that "cheaper labor" is desirable because it's more profitable to the company right? So let's apply transitivity to your first paragraph:

"The only reason the company hired someone overseas was to make more money. They would not have even considered these candidates if they weren't hugely more profitable. Instead, the company would have hired from the local labor market instead."

Yeah, what you are describing is practically the definition of exploitation of labor by capital, and alienation of the worker from the value they create.

> On the other hand, the only reason the company hired someone overseas was to save money.

Ding ding ding - we have the winner here. In my company, all new headcount is from cheaper countries. We are no longer hiring in the US.

> On the other hand, the only reason the company hired someone overseas was to save money. They would not have even considered these candidates if they weren't hugely cheaper.

Not the only reason: I have plenty of times hired people who had skills we needed and couldn't find locally. Sometimes brought those people over on H-1B, sometimes just hired them remote. And then if we had a few in the same area, opened an engineering office (though these days I am less likely to do that unless the folks really wanted it).

Yes, of course.

But it would be a great motivator if they actually bothered to relocate you in case you showed remarkable performance and added value to the company.

"We just want someone to work for cheap without prospect of progress" tells me that job will have a low ceiling for someone that wants to progress further their career

It's a choice by management,but it's an obvious choice.

We should not expect everyone to be a horrible person, only motivated by profit, but we also should not expect people to act against their own interests all the time.

Following profit motive doesn't make one a horrible person. People operate rationally within the rules they're constrained by (e.g. capitalism). I just think we are capable of making better rules.

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