As an employee, you are already underpaid by default. If the company paid you what you were worth, the company would most likely go out of business. So is it true what Karl Marx said about employers “exploiting” its employees? It surely doesn’t feel like it when you are employed at the big tech companies but I do think there is some truth to the notion of employees being underpaid by default to improve the company bottom line and it surely makes stockholders happier. What do you think? Let’s get a discussion going.
A company wouldn't hire you unless the value you brought to the company is greater than the cost of keeping you hired - otherwise they would let you go. However, that number is high, higher than your salary needs to be. You can get paid very handsomely and live very well while having a good work environment - you don't need to be paid the value of your contributions because there are other big benefits to you when you work there. If it really bothers you though, you can look into contracting - they pay you more and only employ you as much as you are needed.
It is all about bargaining power, companies go out of business just like employees go unemployed. Luck plays a huge factor.
Karl Marx left out how much governments exploit people. A company will pay you as little as it can, intentionally or unintellionally. It is the job of the employee to demonstrate their higher value to get the proper raise, and if not provided to find another employer to pay them that. Now this is where the government comes in with its H1B visas that make it hard for an immigrant to just change jobs, giving them with an incentive to work for less pay and longer hours. And contract work is another way employers get around government regulation that is supposed to "help" workers. The first programmers union the Washington tech alliance was formed in the late 80s bc Microsoft classified a lot of its employees as contractors to skip on paying benefits. If you want to be a part of the change, join the programmers Union! And if the business model of the company is to profit from underpayment it's workers then the company probably doesn't make a lot in the first place - the multiple of your pay to company earnings has to be bigger
And the real minimum wage is 0
Please. You think your company is a charity? It's a business. Of course it will pay you as little as it feels is satisfactory.
I’m actually reading a bunch of people’s works to get all the different perspectives and then come up with my own conclusions. Adam Smith, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke and other influential thinkers are on my list.
I think that 10-20% of employees are under paid and like 30-40% are over paid. It’s hard for a company to filter good candidates from ok ones outside of the extremes so it’s easier to give almost everyone the same pay band especially in early career. I also think it’s important to look at what a persons pay is in respect to. For example an engineer may be able to make a company $1mil and only be paid 300k but if they quit they could only make 200k outside the company. Is this person under or over paid?