[newsclues]

I don’t think profit per employee entitles an employee to more salary, but it can justify or prove that the company can afford to pay more.

I think unions exist specifically to help employees in their struggle to be greedy against a greedy boss or shareholders.

Do you work harder in a partnership where you get 50% or as an employee making 1% of your value?

Has corporate greed harmed its own profits and innovation by failing to adequately pay its employees?

I think greed is good to a point, then it becomes detrimental to self and society.

[antisoeu]

The "they will work harder" argument is bullshit. If that would apply, companies giving their employees more say and shares would be more successful, and drive away the others, all without the need to form unions.

I mean it is possible that shareholders will work harder. But that is not an argument for unions.

Also, some employees are people like cooks or janitors. Will they really work harder, and what would that even mean? What if they just do their jobs? Does a janitor at Google really deserve more money than a janitor somewhere else? What makes them the "chosen ones"? Just lucky to work for a successful company?

[Apocryphon]

> Does a janitor at Google really deserve more money than a janitor somewhere else? What makes them the "chosen ones"? Just lucky to work for a successful company?

Google makes a ton of money off of each employee, and could probably afford it.

https://csimarket.com/stocks/GOOG-Revenue-per-Employee.html

Google, like much of Silicon Valley, regularly puts forth the messaging that it represents the future, not only in terms of technology but in terms of society. ("Making the world a better place." "Don't be evil.") Forward-thinking often lends itself towards democratization, and of personal empowerment. So if Google wants to portray itself as futuristic, and its employees so lucky to be working for such a futuristic organization, then it would follow based on their own company line that janitors at Google might be entitled to more money at more traditional, hierarchical, less worker-empowering companies.

If Google didn't want their employees to set fires, then maybe they shouldn't taught them them the Promethean secret. Perhaps tech companies should cease pretending to be so much nobler than every other traditional form of business. The people running Google created this culture.

[antisoeu]

No matter what revenue they generate, I find it hard to argue that a janitor at Google deserves more than a janitor somewhere else. Presumably they are all doing the same kind of work. Doesn't mean Google shouldn't pay their janitors more, just that they shouldn't have to.

True about Google creating that culture themselves, I don't pity them. I just reject the sentiment in general.