A) Double, triple, 10x existing wages - and go out of business before the year is out.
B) Dictate to privately run and owned businesses that they are subjects of their employees (rather than the other way around) - creating resentment, socialism, and speeding up automation and outsourcing.
I think this is a good point. But the proper response in such cases, it seems to me, is to try to close the loopholes, rather than give up on the experiment.
Or the talented executives will just leave the country and go where they can earn more.
The whack-a-mole game is undoubtedly true. About the most talented execs leaving, this may be true, and it is certainly what well-compensated execs will argue.
Also possible is that it will be primarily the most self-serving execs, rather than the most talented, that will leave. It would be a delightful irony if Swiss companies began performing better after an exodus of executives. And we should remember that there is no limit on executive pay, specifically.
Oximoron at its best. But don't worry about those talented executives, you probably will find ten or more when they leave the country. Switzerland wouldn't have any problem attracting talented workers.
Exactly. I have quite a few clients where management and executive shareholding staff actually work for a different company than the rest of the company.
Typically, this is called something like CompanyName Management Ltd. which sources all its products from CompanyName Ltd. The management company owns the other company, but they are two separate legal structures.
There seems to be one of two possible outcomes if a bill like this passes: Either swiss companies drastically raise worker salaries, or they just move their businesses out of the country.
Is anyone here familiar enough with how Switzerland's economy is structured to know which way it would lean?
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
> If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)
Not only will this NOT raise wages for workers (for obvious reasons – you can't pay janitors, low skilled employees, nor replaceable employees half a million per year, if you want to stay in business), it will also create a system that ends up either automating or outsourcing the work force (and in turn hurting those same people that want this to happen).
This is totally self-destructive and counter-productive, and an example of a group of people with no real experience + absolute bad judgment attempting to force their ill conceived notions on anyone they think is preventing them from reaching the happiness they are entitled to (all without doing the hard work).
If you want to get paid well, take the chance and start your own business, or buy shares in an existing enterprise. Or have the ability to be skillful and in high demand.
> Schwan was paid 261 times as much as Roche's lowest paid worker in 2012, according to a study by employee group Travail.Suisse.
Perhaps Schwan created 261 times more value for the company than the lowest paid employee.
Sorry, I didn't read that correctly. I got the impression somewhere along the way that the people in companies that are are doing the hard work and adding real value are the same ones who are paid insufficiently to start families and get ahead in their lives. It is middle and upper management that can be trimmed without worrying too much about a company's bottom line.
If that was even remotely true, than those poor, overworked, and abused family men could just get management jobs... Do less work and get paid more! Problem solved.
Oh come on! Like if we had the ability to automate this sort of jobs we wouldn't have done it already. And outsourcing it's already done almost everywhere by now. Please, get a grip.
21 comments
[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 76.4 ms ] threadSo for an exec to take home $1 million, their lowest paid employee would have to be on $83,333
A) Double, triple, 10x existing wages - and go out of business before the year is out.
B) Dictate to privately run and owned businesses that they are subjects of their employees (rather than the other way around) - creating resentment, socialism, and speeding up automation and outsourcing.
I don't see a win here for anyone.
The whack-a-mole game is undoubtedly true. About the most talented execs leaving, this may be true, and it is certainly what well-compensated execs will argue.
Also possible is that it will be primarily the most self-serving execs, rather than the most talented, that will leave. It would be a delightful irony if Swiss companies began performing better after an exodus of executives. And we should remember that there is no limit on executive pay, specifically.
Oximoron at its best. But don't worry about those talented executives, you probably will find ten or more when they leave the country. Switzerland wouldn't have any problem attracting talented workers.
Typically, this is called something like CompanyName Management Ltd. which sources all its products from CompanyName Ltd. The management company owns the other company, but they are two separate legal structures.
Is anyone here familiar enough with how Switzerland's economy is structured to know which way it would lean?
Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting article but, frankly, there are plenty of other websites I can go to for this kind of content.
http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
> If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)
This is totally self-destructive and counter-productive, and an example of a group of people with no real experience + absolute bad judgment attempting to force their ill conceived notions on anyone they think is preventing them from reaching the happiness they are entitled to (all without doing the hard work).
If you want to get paid well, take the chance and start your own business, or buy shares in an existing enterprise. Or have the ability to be skillful and in high demand.
> Schwan was paid 261 times as much as Roche's lowest paid worker in 2012, according to a study by employee group Travail.Suisse.
Perhaps Schwan created 261 times more value for the company than the lowest paid employee.
Sorry, I didn't read that correctly. I got the impression somewhere along the way that the people in companies that are are doing the hard work and adding real value are the same ones who are paid insufficiently to start families and get ahead in their lives. It is middle and upper management that can be trimmed without worrying too much about a company's bottom line.
Or perhaps people who decide how much Schwan was offered have incentives other than how much money he'd provide for the company.