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Comment by Udo_Schmitz | Hacker News Reader

So, are people in Sweden, Norway and Finland–where you have access to your fellow citizens salary–more unhappy?

No, but they are, as far as I know, societies with much smaller income differences than other countries. So that might make up for the fact that the information is public.

In keeping with the topic, I don't think developers are unionized in those countries either.

Some are, some are not -- at least in Norway. Unions are particularly strong in the government sector, and generally even developers will be unionised there -- in the private sector there's a general feel that a software engineer is in such a strong position that they don't need a union.

Like for most types of work -- that's probably wrong. But people only ever figure it out when it's too late.

At my previous workplace (a research institute) I believe pretty much 100% were organized, both researchers, developers, sys.admins and other staff.

It's probably not unconnected. I heard an interview recently with a company that shares salary data with all employees, and he said it provided a downward pressure on the salaries for top jobs as the people making those decisions knew that any employee could ask them to justify themselves.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I would think salaries in such union dominated work places are much less arbitrary in the first place.

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