The whole taboo about talking about salary isn't really about salary. It's about the end result of what happens several steps down the line from people talking about salary.<p>Say, for example, you and Steve have the same job description and Steve tells you that he makes $40k more than you. You naturally feel screwed, so you go talk to the boss about it. Now, one of two things might happen. It might turn out that you're actually as good as Steve, and just weren't as good at negotiating. That's the best case, and maybe you'll get yourself the raise that everybody always talks about when this topic comes up.<p>But more likely, you're just not as good at your job as Steve. And now your boss has no choice but tell you so directly. So now you feel even worse, your boss is uncomfortable, and Steve is all self-conscious.<p>Your boss has thought all this through, so he put that silly policy in place. (Notice how <i>he</i> loses in either case.) The fact that such a policy exists is probably an indicator that you're not actually as good as Steve (or possibly that Steve isn't as good as you), and that no real good will come from discussing salaries with each other.<p>If you want to talk salaries, do it with people working at <i>other</i> companies. Figure out your real market rate and if your current employer won't match it, go find somebody who will.<p>Incidentally, a corollary to the above is that you should avoid working at a place where all salaries are public and they pay all their developers the same, based on a few "tiers" or whatever. Unless you expect you're either bad enough at what you do or bad enough at negotiating that you'd normally end up with a salary below the "tier" level, you're guaranteed to leave money on the table in this situation. Probably about 50% of your actual value if you're genuinely good at what you do and can negotiate your way out of a paper bag.
Job market is just like any other market - governed by supply and demand. Currently, it is not efficient. In fact, not even close to being efficient. This is because, a key characteristic of an efficient market is perfect sharing of information.<p>This is why ending Salary Secrecy is a good thing - for both the employer and employee. It might seem that the employer is most affected (as the article suggests), but that is not always true. If there is an equally talented person who is not paid well, someone would eventually make a better offer. He would take that offer thinking that his current company would never pay that well.<p>While tweeting your salary might be quite unlikely, most employees today don't mind sharing their salary details with their friends. It simply helps to understand what the market demand is and improves efficiency of a broken system.
It's a ridiculous one-sided advantage to suppliers of labor if we keep our mouths shut. Perhaps by speaking "that which must not be spoken," we can make salary decisions more open and fair across the board.
In Norway, taxable income is public information. It used to be that it was so public that newspapers would put up searchable databases where you could enter name and postcode to get a list of everyones income and fortune. It's been restricted a little bit. The idea is that it acts as a deterrent to tax evasion and money laundering (your neighbour gets suspicious about that new Ferrari you bought) etc..<p>I don't really have much of an opinion about whether it's good or bad - people mostly don't care other than 5 minutes of excitement when the numbers were out when online news sites still published them.
Coworker pay is irrelevant. The contract is between you and your employer.<p>I've seen people tie themselves in terrible knots over this. It's a losers' game. Instead of getting organised and creating the life they want, they take the lazy option and get caught up over what people in their immediate context are doing.<p>When you apply for work, you need to have a good idea of what you're worth in the broader market, and what kind of work environments you'd like. Having done that, look broadly, negotiate thoroughly, and get something that works for you. When you're not happy, make new arrangements.
I am generally in favor of transparency. In this case I am definitely in favor of more high level transparency about wages. But when it gets to the specific data about one person and their coworkers it gets more difficult due to various cognitive biases (including the Dunning Kruger effect). I would be interested in the results of experiments in complete transparency and how they deal with these issues. I wouldn't currently undertake the experiment because I don't know of a way to structure it that allows it to fail and not be permanent.
Well my employer does tell us the median salary for our roles. If you have clearly defined roles within your organization then salary woes should not be an issue. It is part of being a professional organization. Then you back this structure with a clear process for evaluation and advancement. Advancement does not necessarily need to be upward.
I think the most important thing to know about Millennials is that we're the exact opposite of the smear thrown at us. Boomers call us "entitled" at work. We're actually <i>disentitled</i>.<p>An entitled person expects a social contract to be upheld, and usually the pejorative aspect of the word "entitled" implies that it's one-sided advocacy.<p>We're disentitled because we no longer believe in the corporate social contract at all. We'd be entitled if we expected the other side to follow the rules. We don't. We know they won't, so we break just as many rules. Sure, it's bad for social harmony to people to figure out if they're getting screwed. You know what? Fuck that! I find it worse that people are getting screwed.