[JoshMilo]

After spending eight years in the military (where everyone's salary is public, even Generals) I was kind of shocked when I got out and everyone was so secretive about how much money they made. When I got my first office job a few friends had to coach me to not talk about salary. To me it seems the only one really benefiting from not talking about money is the company paying you.

[brightball]

Well, there's a couple of reasons for it.

The main reason is that there is this idea of equal pay for equal work which only works if your work is producing widgets per hour. That's fine on a manufacturing line, an hourly job, or a job where the variance in performance of a job isn't measurably valuable to a business.

I've got a lot of experience as a programmer/devops guy, but if somebody hired me to setup Wordpress with a template for them I'm not really adding much more value than anybody else who could do the job. From the business perspective, they just want the site to be setup and look nice.

If a company is looking to hire a developer who can both develop the application, help manage the infrastructure and identify programming decisions that are going to cause a negative impact down the line...I'm going to add a lot more value for that business.

But...if my salary at that business was public and you could clearly see on paper that I made more money that another programmer on the team who really felt like he was contributing just as much it's going to cause resentment. The only way to clear up that resentment is for somebody to sit down with said guy and say, "Look, this guy does X, Y and Z and has experience and a track record of identifying problems and preventing us from making expensive mistakes. His salary is based on the value proposition. You are focussed on an area of programming for the app and you do a great job with it."

There's no way to explain it without causing resentment, having another person constantly having to justify themselves, or backhandedly belittling the contributions of another person.

This is essentially why people don't talk about it. Because nobody thinks their work isn't as valuable or their contributions are as valuable as the most valuable people at the company...and they have no way of understanding that without actually doing those people's jobs.

There's not a PC way to say "there's no such thing as equal work" unless your job is so specific, so thoroughly defined and so repetitive that anybody can be plugged in to perform the tasks...and at that point your job doesn't have much value anyway.

[polymatter]

But keeping salaries secret leads to rumour and speculation. How is that better? Especially when you make it so taboo to talk about, it just makes it more exciting. Especially so since you can't hide the externalities.

I'll give you an example. When we learnt a girl from finance owned her own horse, the gossip around the office was not how did she skrimp and save, but what she needed to do to whom to receive such an obviously large salary. I have no doubt she did just save her money well but thanks to keeping everyone's salary secret, we have vicious rumours instead of fact.

If you are really hiring people who honestly believe that everyone apart from them contribute little to the company, then you are hiring incredibly arrogant people. If you are really hiring people who honestly would be surprised that some people earn more than others, then you are hiring incredibly naive people.

fwiw, I earn £27,000 as a C#/Java developer in central London and I know I am extremely poor at salary negotiation so I expect I am grossly underpaid. This causes me resentment. Salary negotiations involve me having to justify myself or backhandedly belittling the contributions of my colleagues. ie. exactly the sorts of problems you believe that keeping salaries secret solves.

There is only one reason for keeping salaries secret, and that is to keep wages down. That benefits employers, and it benefits those who are great at negotiating.

[petercooper]

fwiw, I earn £27,000 as a C#/Java developer in central London and I know I am extremely poor at salary negotiation so I expect I am grossly underpaid.

I mean this in a nice way, but what you lack in salary negotiation skills you could make up in tolerating a job hunt and switching. In London, if you're intermediate or better with those skills, you could probably find positions with a 50% higher publicly stated salary?

Not sure about the horse thing though. You can get stabled livery and pay all the various horse related expenses on about £5K a year. My car costs me more.

[e40]

When we learnt a girl from finance owned her own horse, the gossip around the office was not how did she skrimp and save, but what she needed to do to whom to receive such an obviously large salary. I have no doubt she did just save her money well but thanks to keeping everyone's salary secret, we have vicious rumours instead of fact.

I'm sorry, but that's just plain stupidity. There are many, many reasons how the woman (I assume, not an actual "girl") would have a horse. The combined income of her and her spouse might have allowed it. It might have been a gift from someone.

If your coworkers are using stuff like this as the basis for gossip... you work with some horrible people.

[polymatter]

You are right I shouldn't refer to a woman in her early 20's as a girl. Its a habit when I thought "girl" meant, woman younger than me. Sorry.

Horses are expensive to maintain, even if they are gifted to you for free. But people use all sorts of basis for gossip.

[Flenser]

Horses also take up a lot of time (or rather if you have one, you will spend a lot of time with it to get the most out of what you are paying for it), which means you aren't spending money on other things.

People often make the mistake of thinking "how can they afford <expensive thing> when I can't (because of all the <expensive things> I have to pay for)" without thinking that maybe the other person has a different lifestyle/priories to them.

[brightball]

This is essentially the problem which you are seeing from a different angle and that's okay.

This example for instance:

"I'll give you an example. When we learnt a girl from finance owned her own horse, the gossip around the office was not how did she skrimp and save, but what she needed to do to whom to receive such an obviously large salary. I have no doubt she did just save her money well but thanks to keeping everyone's salary secret, we have vicious rumours instead of fact."

The reality is...it's really not anybody's business. People are asking for an answer to a question that really isn't their concern. I have a nice house. People who see it assume I make a lot more than I do. Reality is that I got it for about half price in a foreclosure. Can people speculate about how much I make...sure. Is it their business to deserve an answer to how I have what I have...not really. If stating her salary really would end the rumors and she was concerned about that, she could just tell people by choice. Odds are she doesn't care that much.

And then this:

"If you are really hiring people who honestly believe that everyone apart from them contribute little to the company, then you are hiring incredibly arrogant people."

That's not what I said. I said there's a value proposition for certain people that the business feels justifies their compensation. I didn't say that those people thought everybody else contribute little, only that as far as the business is concerned their compensation is justified.

Or this:

"If you are really hiring people who honestly would be surprised that some people earn more than others, then you are hiring incredibly naive people."

Agree but this is what happens. People find out somebody makes more than them, doesn't understand why they make what they make and resents it. Regardless of cause. Sometimes it's justified. Sometimes it's not. Forcing the person who makes more to constantly justify it to everybody doesn't solve the problem of people feeling like they deserve more.

Shoot, when I got out of college I thought I could work my tail off and be a VP in 5 years. Also thought I was worth a lot more than I was when I had very little experience. This happens in MANY people with less experience who don't understand exactly HOW MUCH they don't understand. I was naive then and I know better now.

In London, as far as I know your compensation is about right. I actually worked remote for a London based company for a while for about half what I made in the US. Some of the factors were around health care, exchange rate, state of the company (start up). In the US C# programmers are in EXTREMELY high demand.

Where I live right now, your skill set, without knowing much about your experience would land you a job probably making twice what you make right now.

And I live in one of the poorer areas of the US. Right to work state. Disclosure generally happens from job postings with a salary range based on experience. That's just what supply and demand does. If there's demand for your skill set, recruiters will seek you out, you'll see job postings and salary listing for people with your skills and you'll quickly identify whether you are under compensated for your area.

People get an idea of the range that a position should pay but they don't get to know the private specifics of each person's compensation.

[polymatter]

> This is essentially the problem which you are seeing from a different angle and that's okay.

Having thought about this, I think you're right. I can see how keeping salaries secret doesn't cause the issues I suggested it does. Sorry, reading my post now I come across as needlessly combative.

Personally, being transparent about salaries makes me trust the management more. I think more transparency is generally a good thing and I don't think there are any big negatives to keeping salaries secret. But it doesn't cause the issues I suggested it does.

[debacle]

This is completely untrue. People talk about salary in other places of the world very regularly, because it is often public.

People don't talk about salary in the US because companies will fire you for it.

Edit: See kasey_junk's response and my follow-up.

[brightball]

It's illegal to do what you're describing.

"Your right to discuss your salary information with your coworkers is protected by the federal government. The National Labor Relations Act states that employers can't ban the discussion of salary and working conditions among employees."

http://work.chron.com/can-tell-coworkers-salary-7204.html

Edit: Just saw that response and while I agree that you can be fired for any reason...that could be for anything at all. The only reason most companies are going to fire you is if:

a) You aren't doing the job you were hired to do b) You are creating a negative work environment. Actively trying to discuss salaries publicly at the company could definitely do that, depending on the type of and size of the company. Creating resentment definitely can cause problems but it's all situational. The situation that you saw first hand could have been as simple as you describe it or there could have been other contributing factors that you aren't aware of.

Being fired on a hair trigger for something like that seems extremely unlikely. Businesses don't go through the hiring, interview, background check and training only to fire somebody because they went against a rule in the book. Companies hire people for to do jobs because they need them to do that job and they value that performance.

[debacle]

A lot of illegal things happen all the time (wage theft, salary collusion, 1099 exploitation). Worker protections in the US have no teeth.

[dragonwriter]

> A lot of illegal things happen all the time (wage theft, salary collusion, 1099 exploitation). Worker protections in the US have no teeth.

There's probably some lack of teeth issues, but I think the biggest issue is that people are just culturally conditioned not to take advantage of the protections that exist.

[debacle]

Definitely agree. Wanting worker protections is seen as socialist, unionist, and lazy.

[kasey_junk]

Most discussions about salary are federally protected in the US and backed up by court decisions in nearly every state. If you get fired for talking about salary you almost certainly can seek redress from the National Labor Relations Board.

[wil421]

Companies usually wouldn't fire you for talking about salary but they will find another reason to fire you for talking about salary.

I've seen people get fired for being late to a meeting once. The real reason they got fired was something else but on paper and what they told the person was for being late.

[debacle]

You are completely correct, however I have personally seen two employee handbooks that forbid discussing salary and, living in an at-will state, I'm sure if I discussed salary I would be fired for something completely unrelated.

[kasey_junk]

I have as well and have pointed out that it is probably illegal and potentially opens them to civil liability.

I've also seen manager training materials that specifically tell managers not to even hint that salary is a secret topic as the liability involved is problematic.

It is one thing to claim that worker protections don't exist, its another to claim that you refuse to take advantage of them.

[kenko]

It's still true that you have limited practical redress if you're fired (especially in an at-will state).

[dbingham]

I've also seen an employee handbook that forbid salary discussions. When I politely pointed out to them (with references) said statement was illegal, the response I got was very cold.

[nowey]

and your last statement is untrue:

http://www.npr.org/2014/04/13/301989789/pay-secrecy-policies...

"Under the National Labor Relations Act, enacted in 1935, private-sector employees have the right to engage in "concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection."

The language is somewhat antiquated, but according to Estlund, "it means that you and your co-workers get to talk together about things that matter to you at work.""

[dbingham]

Yeah, but this doesn't prevent a lot of employers from attempting to ban discussion in their employee handbooks. And it's not widely known that such bans are illegal. It's so common it's included in a lot of boilerplate and is de facto accepted as the reality by many (if not most) people.

[fleitz]

"I've got a lot of experience as a programmer/devops guy, but if somebody hired me to setup Wordpress with a template for them I'm not really adding much more value than anybody else who could do the job. From the business perspective, they just want the site to be setup and look nice."

Here's the thing you might have experience doing that, I have experience driving revenue and increased sales with websites. I suggest you stop programming, and start driving revenue.

Also, I'm highly skilled at increasing employee productivity through automation performance enhancements, such as reducing build time which saves 15 minutes per programmer per day, over 10 programmers, or 912 person hours per year. I'll collect my cheque for $25K for that thank you very much :)

[brightball]

And if you can put those numbers in front of a business owner, it's going to pretty much justify higher compensation than me.

But should you feel like you have to constantly defend yourself when you know the value you add, the business owner knows the value you add but everybody else looking at the sheet says "He makes HOW much?"

NOTE: I honestly don't know why you're getting voted down. I up voted you fwiw.

[fleitz]

I don't know either, c'est la vie. You can't pay rent with upvotes, that's what matters to me.

[s73v3r]

I honestly don't see any of that as reason other than, "Talking with people is HARD!"

[kenko]

Yep!

Some companies try to prohibit their employees from discussing compensation, precisely because they see the benefit of keeping people in the dark about each others' salaries, benefits, etc.

This practice is actually illegal, but it's also mostly unnecessary, because so many people have internalized the idea that such things are Not To Be Spoken Of anyway.

[ryanmarsh]

What about the reverse where I can negotiate an outsized salary to feed my family with so long as our dealings are private.

[RodericDay]

What about the reverse-reverse, when another engineer, as talented as you, but less charismatic or more ignorant about labor economics unrelated to his day-to-day job, isn't able to?

Is it really the for the best if you and your boss split the money he left on the table?

[ryanmarsh]

Better for my children or his?

[kenko]

Why would you only be able to do this if your dealings are private?

[ryanmarsh]

Jealousy.

[pavlov]

Discussing one's salary seems to be a particularly American taboo. Yet it's curiously dissonant with the overall American enthusiasm for all things money.

I wonder when it started? Somehow I can't imagine 19th century Americans being so secretive about how much they're making.

[kedean]

It probably comes down to pride. Americans are a prideful people, we don't like to admit to being wrong or inferior. If you go around telling all of your coworkers how much you make, chances are good that at least one of them is making quite a bit more for what you see as the same job. Most people would rather not find out that they get inferior pay to their coworkers, even if they could potentially do something about it, because it tells them that the employer sees them as the one worth less (whether justified or not).

It's kind of like how most people aren't going to just ask their spouse if they're cheating, they'll wait until the evidence is clear. Nobody wants to confront the potentially ugly truth.

[RodericDay]

> Most people would rather not find out that they get inferior pay to their coworkers, even if they could potentially do something about it, because it tells them that the employer sees them as the one worth less (whether justified or not).

I don't think you can actually assert that this is what people actually want on a meaningful psychological level. They're certainly scared away from doing it with unenforceable lines banning it in contracts, TV shows skirting away from mentioning salary figures at all times, etc.

The word taboo is fitting precisely because of this.

[kedean]

I'm not saying that people want to be secretive about their own salary, I'm saying people are afraid to know the salaries of their peers.

To use a childish simile, it's just like how most guys won't actually say how big their dick is, even if they'll talk about the general topic. It's not because it's "taboo", it's because they don't want to find out that their best friend is bigger.

[rwallace]

I'd say it is consonant with it. Making salaries public has a strong flattening effect - it makes it much more difficult for people of the same rank to have different pay. Someone else said in Norway all salaries are public, which fits the Scandinavian idea that one person shouldn't be much wealthier than another. In America, there has traditionally been the idea that you as an individual might be able to get rich.

I'm not taking a position on which side is better or worse, just noting that whether you aim to get richer than your neighbour is probably going to be the main thing determining whether you think salaries should be public or private.

[ryanmarsh]

In the Army we were all broke so it didn't matter. Now there is no fucking way I want my peers knowing how much I make. I've been very successful in negotiating 25%+ higher salaries than them on balance. I commonly make more than my boss.

Additionally, there is a privacy aspect to publishing this information on a public website. People I don't know or trust don't need to know how much I make. The reasons for this should be totes obvi to HN.

I'm actually horrified that I'm able to see the salaries and so forth for complete strangers.

[netcan]

I agree

The other side of the coin is totally taboo free. IE, people on the employer side freely talk about salaries with people at other companies & recruiters in order to d exactly what the employee-side taboo prevents, get information to help them negotiate.

[dominotw]

Do people get performance bonuses in the military?

[MatthewMcDonald]

It's not really the same as in civilian jobs, but there are several pay bonuses for people in hazardous areas, imminent danger, at sea, etc.

[ryanmarsh]

The answer is no. You do not get performance bonuses. You get little bits of colored ribbon.

[serve_yay]

> When I got my first office job a few friends had to coach me to not talk about salary. To me it seems the only one really benefiting from not talking about money is the company paying you.

And the people who make more than you :). Sorry but I see this point thrown around often in this context, and there is truth to it, but also a little more to the situation than that.