Should salary be a secret?

when gunning for a merit raise i've found we need much more ammo than, 'you know i'm kicking ass and deserve it.' another job offer is one way to get management to respond accordingly, of course.

the other is to be aware of what the paper is paying your colleagues. it's 'us against them.' knowledge is power. managements go to great pains to discourage salary disclosure for a reason, and it sure as heck isn't for 'morale's sake.' it's for their bottom line's sake.

so i've NEVER understood why so many staffers are opposed to salary disclosure. never have, never will.

 

I guess I see both sides, but for reasons stated above, when you're the young person coming in, letting everybody know you're making more than they are can create problems. And then I guess I'm not as sure as you are that knowing I'm doing a better job than a guy I know is making $100 more a week than I am is going to automatically pressure management to do right by me and fix the inequity. I can also see management saying, "So what? You don't like it, go somewhere else." And there's not a lot of leverage right on on that front.

 

That one story in the link, about the one employee making $125K while the others making 85K showed how ridiculous people think.

They pressured the one employee to cut their own salary, rather than pushing management to increase their's. It's like that old contract dispute story of Joe DiMaggio, when he asked for a salary that was equal to Gehrig's. When management pointed that out, DiMaggio replied, "Mr. Gehrig is very underpaid."

That's the sort of attitude that employees need. Not getting resentful over one employee making more money. Rather, use that pressure against management to open the coffers more.

 

About two years ago, there was an opening at our competitor newspaper. Rhody and I knew this, knew what that job was paying, knew how much we were doing for the company and knew we'd both have a fairly good shot at landing the competing job if we decided to go over there but all of that meant nothing when we asked for a raise.

What did? The fact that we knew the sports reporters at our sister paper were making $2 more per hour than we were.

We told the publisher this, showed her everything we were doing compared to every other reporter/editor in the company and made sure to mention the competing newspaper gig and said we just wanted to me compensated fairly.

She came back three hours later with raises for both of us. And this was at a time where we had just laid off about eight people so, yeah, having that information helps.

 

screw everybody else; heck, if you were one of those 'vets' who were supposed to be so upset over hearing your salary wouldn't you want to know it? of course management can always counter, 'so what, eff you, go find another job if you don't like it...' but again, wouldn't you want to know how little they think of you or how little they think of doing right by you?

hey, it's possible those unhappy vets aren't being paid as well is because they're not as good or important as you... everybody has to come to grips with that reality at some point, if it is indeed reality...

but again, i see no circumstances in which i wouldn't want to know. sounds to me that your loyalty to the guy who hired you, sf, while noble and understandable as a relative newbie in the biz, did no one except your boss any favors.

 

Yes it's illegal to discriminate against someone based on their family status. 14th Amendment.

 

Exactly.

 

Because people don't want to upset management or the boss is their friend. If you don't want to rock the boat, you're in the wrong business. It's BS to quote policy on why you shouldn't disclose salary. We're journalists. If we favor less information rather than more, then we should just be the good news newspaper and fill everything up with grip-and-grins and stories on the church dinner.

 

I'm apparently deep in the minority on this, and really don't have great support for my position, so OK, fair enough.

 

hey, that's okay, sf. been there myself. you were in a tough spot for a youngin', and i'm certainly not going to argue we shouldn't trust or feel beholden to any management type. but it's like being a union member -- if there's a strike, but you feel loyalty or even friendship with your boss, it doesn't matter. the lines have been drawn. same thing here -- your the guy who hired you was wrong to put you in that spot. anyone able to share anything about their salary with anyone they choose.

but there are certainly situations that test these principles. sorry you were caught in the middle.

 

That's OK. I've posted on many a thread where I was in the minority or the only one to support one side of an issue.

 

7 B.J. Raji
714 Caleb Hanie
0 Jay Cutler