The New York Times runs an interesting article about a handful of firms considering moving toward a system of greater transparency about salary practices. Frustratingly, however, the articles gets through many, many, many words of discussion about the “don’t ask your coworkers what they make” convention that attributes the convention solely to American middle-class values. It seems to me, however, that there’s no way of understanding this phenomenon without recognizing that its traditionally been considered to be in the bosses interest to keep workers in the dark about salary scales. After all, management knows perfectly well what everyone’s earning. And management also has some sense of what everyone is worth. And management wouldn’t pay people more than management thought they were worth, but management would gladly pay someone less. If people learn what their colleagues make — especially those in comparable positions — they may get a sense of how much management actually thinks they’re worth.
That can lead to demands for salary increases as people push their compensation right up to the margin of what an employer is willing to pay. And worse, these kind of conversations can lead to really subversive activity like a desire to bargain collectively. But luckily enough, it’s impolite to do this:
“It’s a very American, very middle-class phenomenon,” said Ed Lawler, the director of the Center for Effective Organizations at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, who has studied salary transparency since 1962. “The way we were raised is that it was bad taste to talk about how much you make.”
A very American phenomenon and a very useful coincidence.
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