Ask HN: How to address female coworkers getting paid less
I accidentally discovered the hourly wage that some of my newly hired female coworkers make (offer letter left in the open). The trouble is, they have been hired in at the exact same job and experience level (programmer, right out of college) that I was a couple years ago, but they are being paid less than I was at that time.
The pay difference is pretty small, about $1.00, but our company also claims that our salaries are pretty algorithmic based on experience level.
I don't believe that anyone at our company would consciously pay women less for the same work, but it looks like maybe its happening unconsciously.
I feel a little uncomfortable talking to either the relevant coworkers or my supervisor about it because I'm not sure it's my place to comment on what they are getting paid, but it also feels like I am contributing to the problem if I don't say something.
What should I do HN?
81 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 130 ms ] threadAlso, admitting that you were looking at offer letters when you should have known straight away from first glance that it was none of your business could bring some heat on you and your career that you certainly won't appreciate.
Mind your own business.
Plus, as someone else said: unless you know what male new hires get paid now, there is no evidence of any wrongdoing.
Also: maybe they get some other benefit (e.g. relocation money) you don't receive or you just negotiated better.
I would personally be pretty offended if you read my offer letter even accidentally, despite being very happy to tell you how much I make.
If it's that private why would you just leave in the open like that?
I never understood the problem with shearing how much you earn but apparently it's taboo so i don't share unless somebody asks.
It might be that we are in a recession at the moment and works are not that plenty ( at least where i am ). Someone might have noticed something on your CV or on the interview and did decide that you were worth a bit more.
Salaries have decreased dramatically in the company that i am in. Some position as 2 years ago is 300Euro lower.
But i believe the right approach for that is the one that sweettea has mentioned. Casually bringing it up.
Are you trolling?
Generally, the calculation I use is this:
$1.00 * 40(hrs/wk) * 52(wks/yr) = $2080 per year.
(Usually I'm working the other way to get an hourly number from an annual salary but the math works both ways.)
I'm inclined to believe it's none of your business and it's something between HR and the new hires (there may be reasons beyond what you can see - did you have much more experience or side-projects out of college for example?), but at the same time I'd like equality or at least to sate my curiosity if I were you.
(oh, and c) you pay everyone a decent base so that they really don't have anything to complain about anyway)
Business isn't the place for emotion.
Company culture of not talking about earnings only helps the company. It allows them to pay lowest market value for anyone, under the (often true) hopes that they don't know their value. In short talk about it, and get other people to talk about it.
I would talk with your co-workers get them to open up about what they make, or have the breach subject in the conversation group while the other person can hear. Talk about what you used to make and what you make now. The key if to give everyone more context. Its important to remember that someones value as a person is not their market price.
The more information a person has available, the better the choices they can make.
[$47/hr, 2 years out of college, east coast]
So if you tell someone your salary, your job probably feels more difficult to you than it looks to them, and you probably feel more productive than they think you are. If you make the same or more than they do, there is a very high risk that they will think you are overpaid.
This is obviously a risk to the company, which is why most companies (at least in the US) have a policy against it. But it is also a risk to you and your relationship with that other person, which is why few people share their salary information with their friends.
You are right that this is a fundamental problem for equality. But it is not an easy or safe thing to change, which means it will take a lot of time and effort.
I am not saying that the status quo should remain. I'm just pointing out the reason it is difficult to change.
(Don't Call Yourself a Programmer: www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/)
The invisible hand of the market will lead prople to companies with the highest value for X2, which are usually also those where the productivity (i.e. contribution to company revenue) per person is highest.
What's amazing to me is that every company I've ever known of has a policy along those lines, yet it is illegal to sanction employees for talking about their pay with coworkers under the National Labor Relations Act and has been for a long, long time.
I also wonder to what extent the jealousy argument applies in the real world. It makes sense, and I'm sympathetic to it, but I've worked at two jobs where it was pretty well known what everyone made. There were huge disparities in what people made for doing the same work in both cases. It didn't cause any resentment issues I know of - but I suspect it did make people more likely to ask for a raise when they knew what was possible, which I think is the problem that management really has with it, because it becomes much harder for them to justify to the employee why they can't or won't pay them more, even though there may be valid reasons for it.
This has two effects (1) Saves me a lot of time on the negotiation front. If the announcement doesn't pay what you want, don't apply to it. Saves me and the hiring manager a lot of wasted time if I were to apply to a post thinking I'll get paid $X when it will really pay $Y. And (2) Since it's all public anyway, everyone knows that if you want to make $X then you need to train into position Y and you have a pretty concrete list of knowledge/skills that you can hack away on to achieve that. None of this blind guess work.
[I have no explanation for why she stayed there for 9 years]
These policies are actually often illegal due to the National Labor Relations Act.
Their salaries gave me the incentive to demand a big raise from my employer. Which I did and didn't get, so I quit and got myself a much better paid job.
[38K, ~15years experience, tiny non-technical startup in London]
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rates-and-allowan...
[$67/hr, 2 years of experience, senior frontend engineer, Palo Alto]
[$46/hr, 5 years of experience, Software Engineer, Boston]
If OTOH you're not billing 160 hours a month or you're not getting the standard benefits (healthcare, etc), then you're contracting whether you describe yourself as a contractor or not, so the objection would stand in that case.
(This distinction made for the benefits of other HNers, since I have from time-to-time run into people who think they are employees but who are actually consultants who just happen to have a very thin client list and substandard rates.)
Personally, I'm at the point where I don't care as much about the money, it's more about the people I work with. For those not at my point though is why I provide salary info though - it is a nice data point to use to assess for others.
I know at least 10 - 20 people in CA with four times more experience than you working on 70% of salary of yours.
Don't want to sound venomous but what you are getting is nothing but "bubble" salary.
I started out making 10% more than what I was initially offered since I knew what coworkers with similar experience made and asked for that amount. And I know what coworkers with much more experience (10+ years to my 2 years) make, so I can gauge whether I am on the right track.
I seriously loathe "inherently stupid" like you. Neither you nor OP knows actual components of package offered to new hires. Let's take gender out of picture for a moment. Now think, how many times you have seen posts coming out from such shitposters because "less salary" was offered to "male" or H1B developers ? Show me at least five.
Things change in two years. May be company does not have as much revenue/profit or "demand of new hire" as it had two years back.
So you literally want to make everyone state their salary ? Do you have any idea how much political environment we all play in ? How many people will literally stab in back for earning $1 more than them ? Because 99 % human nature is such that I work hard than anyone else then why S/He be paid more than me ? We don;t think about background, education, training required to get to speed, expected time to active contribution etc etc.
Are you white ? In reality what you are saying is commonly known as "White Knighting". You are not going to get any more pussy by white knighting. Sure you will make more enemies. This might sound bitter to you but I am speaking truth and Mate, truth hurts.
If people actually support equal pay for equal work, shouldn't this apply to every job and industry? Should bench warmers in the NBA be payed the same as LeBron James?
I respectfully disagree with the commenter who says this "is absolutely not your problem". You are right to care about the wellbeing of your colleagues, that's one of the differences between a company (and dare I say it, a 'team') and a collection of freelancers. As far as you know, you've - inadvertently - uncovered evidence that your company discriminates according to gender, and that's a serious matter. Maybe it's not illegal, maybe the company has no real problem with it, but you do, so I feel you have every right to bring it up.
What might happen as a result, of course, depends on the company culture and the opinion of your supervisor (and their supervisor, etc.) The best case is that they've made a mistake, will be very grateful to you for bringing it to their attention, and your colleagues will thank you for your intervention. In the worst case, they'll fire you for meddling where you shouldn't and, if that's illegal in your jurisdiction, you'll need to decide whether to open a claim against them - either way, that case doesn't sound like fun.
Another option is to have a candid discussion about salary with one of your female colleagues. Your company might well discourage that kind of behaviour, but I'm pretty sure there's nothing illegal about it, and it's certainly not immoral IMO. If you're talking to the person you know is being paid less, they might appreciate you empowering them to deal with it however they wish, rather than fighting their battle on their behalf. Although be prepared to offer support if it's requested. After all, if it's really an insignificant amount, they might want to leave it, and you might be OK with that.
Ultimately, I think you need to tread carefully, but evaluate a) what sort of company you want to work for (if they react badly to you raising this, maybe they're not worth it, if you can afford such principles) b) what sort of colleague you want to be.
Wait you're able to divine that from one anecdote about one person? What if they are explicitly discriminating only this person(still bad but not sexism). Is it possible the company is only paying her less because of some other deal on the table? Have you ever had a company accidentally pay you the wrong amount(it's never a good sign, but it happens), have you ever made a typo?
Prove me wrong and I will gladly shame this anonymous company, but OP hasn't talked with the friend and we're going off of one offer letter, not even a paystub.
... and the next time someone leaves private correspondence in the open, cover it or turn it over without reading it, and tell them at your first opportunity. That way, maybe they'd pay you the same courtesy.
When you say "some" of your female coworkers, do you mean "one"? As others have said, you can't compare without also knowing what your new male coworkers (if any) are getting paid; but one man versus one woman also wouldn't be strong evidence for anything.
Here you go. You don't know how much they would pay you now.
It sounds like the algorithm has changed
Then you will know whether there is discrimination based on medical conditions or not.
We all know the outcome of this.
The same applies to appearing sick otherwise. I have a particularly white skin. Under the wrong light it can even appear a little gray. Interviews in sunlight go significantly better than under UV light, and I'm pretty sure it's-because they think I'll be ill soon.
Management, everywhere I've ever worked was a band of old boys, playing social poker with eachother. Even the bosses I've had that were minority themselves discriminate. And they were minority only in genes, for example one was a "Turk" ... A christian, grew up in Boston. But yes he's tall and darker and has that broad face. Enjoys football. Discriminates based on religion (granted, given what muslims are doing to Christians in Turkey, I understand. Especially after him showing me some articles concerning the still existing Turkish Armenian Christians)
But it's not like other bosses were different. The problem is the type of person that tends to fill middle management, nothing else.
Since I've started working the main difference is that they lie about it really hard these days.
If you assume that a company acts rationally there is no reason for arbitrary discrimination, but every reason to adjust wages according to possible costs. I'm sure in the case of wage inequality, this is not the main reason however.
I see a lot of HR departments put a huge effort into making salaries seem fair. They standardize job titles. They link job titles to salary scales (A,B,C,D) and then have sub scales (1-15) for 'experience' (years at the company) or performance (positive performance reviews). The problem is there are always huge loopholes:
"Ok, the experience scale can also count time at similar positions at other companies" Well, that sounds reasonable... "Also if you have a lot of industry connections we'll count that as experience" Um, okay... "also if management is impressed by a junior hire's capabilities we can apply that towards the experience scale" wait... and "Well Jane, you performed really well but management only allows us to give out so many exemplary performance reviews per year" what?
The result is that you have a beautiful salary scale in your employee handbook and a nice basis for hand-waving (your job puts you in scale B, and you've been here three years, so that's why you're at B3!), but everyone is just paid whatever they can negotiate. It's been shown time and time again that this disadvantages women, immigrants, minorities (and probably also more introverted types).
There are a lot of factors in any compensation plan, and salary is just one. I'd be cautious about judging too quick based only on a single factor.
It is possible that the company is giving themselves negotiating room.
Edit: That is not to say there is not an on going problem with women getting paid less. There is. But not every woman getting paid less than a man is getting paid less because she is a woman. It only takes a tiny variance in any of the other variables to make one person's salary different than another's. We can't blame sexism for every bad thing that happens to a woman.
Don't get me wrong, I'm 100% for income equality opportunity. That is, on average, the same experience, education and job pay the same for both sexes, sexual orientations, races, religious and so on.
But taking a single case and making a cause of it is difficult, since it is just a single case.
It is not your place to comment on what they are getting paid, unless they are your friends.
There is no problem there. Differences in individual employee productivity are likely to outweigh $1/hour difference in pay rate.