The Wage Gap, & Sharing Salary with Women

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"We are labor. They are management," Ang, my coworker friend from the other side of our cubicle wall, reminded me.

"I know. But I'm new."

Without me realizing it, as a 21 year old employee who knew nothing about anything, Ang was mentoring me, as well as advocating for me to be reclassified. I was technically doing the work of a buyer, while being paid as an administrative assistant. 

If she was right, I'd be reclassified into a new role with a higher salary. But submitting formally for a reclassification was tricky: we had to involve the union, human resources, my own boss. And it might not work, which could be a career limiting move. Would my boss view it as a slap in the face?

I was uncomfortable with the idea of rocking the boat, and the $24k I was pulling in was more than I was making before, and way easier to earn, compared to when I was working at the Red Cross during the day and then at Hollywood Video at night. Why jeopardize a good thing?

"I just started here a year ago, Ang, and they're kind of doing me a solid by giving me this new work as a trial run..." 

"Don't side with them," she reminded me. "I am on your side. The union's on your side. We're labor. They are management."

While I'm not always in favor of seeing the world through a competitive, zero sum lens, when it comes to your workplace, I think Ang pretty much had it right. There is labor, and there is management, and they really are two different camps that just happen to cohabitate the same office space. 

As it turned out, she had the right call all along. I was reclassified to a buyer, got a big pay bump, and was on my way to being a procurement professional.

While I haven't been in a union or in government employment for about a decade, the way Ang framed things stuck with me. There is a real divide in a workplace, which isn't a bad or contentious thing, necessarily. There are the workers, and then there are the people managing them. These groups are often embroiled in zero sum negotiations, and ones in which management has outsized power.

Forgetting that divide, perhaps by framing the workplace as "one big family" (one which just happens to systematically underpay some of its cousins and daughters), can have huge, negative impacts on your compensation.

Now that I'm in the private sector, without the formal organization of a union, I've tried to build better work relationships. One of my goals is having a close enough bond that we can eventually discuss salary, if both of us are open to it. Once a year or so, I'll meet one on one with some coworkers, and we compare what we make as well as what raises or bonuses we receive.

Why bother trying to have these conversations, since they violate a lot of established workplace norms?

My initial motivation was a sense of fairness. The people who put in the effort, and who get the results that matter, should be compensated for that. The kiss-ass who putzes around on the internet all day and never has any measurable impact shouldn't be paid more than those who are doing all the work. 

And, besides, transparency is a worthwhile goal all on its own. Management can easily justify almost any compensation it offers during an employee's annual review, if there is no benchmark to compare it to. Is $75,000 a competitive salary for this job in 2019? 

Is it more or less than the average of your coworkers' pay in the same roles? 

Is a 5% bonus good or bad, considering what you accomplished this year?

These questions can almost never be answered when the compensation data is opaque. When all the workers are in the dark, each worker is always negotiating from a position of weakness. Management knows every worker's salary, while each worker has no idea whether they're being paid more or less than the other workers. 

This information asymmetry gives management an almost laughable advantage: they can pay deserving workers far less than others, let the wage gap grow ever larger throughout their careers, and the worker has no idea it is even happening.

Even if a worker manages to negotiate an extra $5,000 a year, she still doesn't know where she stands. Does that extra $5,000 now bring her in line with her peers with similar accomplishments and tenure, or is she still being underpaid?

And while it's helpful to think of all the issues an individual worker faces, we can also step back and ponder the systemic issues with compensation. Women earn less than men in the same roles, and the figures are far worse for women of color. 

2017 figures from the Institute for Women's Policy Research. Link

2017 figures from the Institute for Women's Policy Research. Link

Recently, I've tried to view these salary conversations within the context of the wage gap. As a man, I benefit from the status quo, wherein my salary is opaque and is also higher than it would be in a truly fair system: one that offered equal pay for equal work.

Simply put, I benefit from the wage gap. 

If I realize that, but choose to keep quiet because I don't want to rock the boat, then that is a tacit endorsement of the wage gap. And that sucks. 

On the plus side, the two most recent conversations I've had with women coworkers showed that they were, in fact, earning less than me, despite us being at the same band level, earning the same 'grades' on our annual reviews, and the fact that I have fewer years with the company.  

Now that my colleagues have some concrete information to compare their salary and bonuses to, I'm hopeful that they're able to negotiate from a position of strength in their next discussion of compensation with management.

Since these conversations are inherently sensitive, I try to be mindful of some guiding principles. If you're reading this and want to try something similar for your workplace, perhaps they'll help.

First, I am careful about who I have these conversations with. These talks potentially can be risky. While there are federal protections for workers discussing wages at work, so you should not be fired, I also can't see management promoting or rewarding an employee with outsized bonuses if they know you're just going to turn around and tell your coworkers about it. 

If word gets out, the opportunity costs could be huge. So I only broach the subject with coworkers I know very well, and whom I trust to keep a secret.

I also try to set expectations about what we will talk about before we jump right in to it. 

Are we both comfortable sharing the same information? Current salary only? Bonuses and raises, too? Past salary and review information? 

Can we both commit not to share the other's information with anyone else, especially management in a negotiation? (e.g. "I know you're paying Brian X, so I need that as well.") 

Do we want to chat again next year after reviews: to establish a yearly meeting, so we can keep sharing this information, and both keep benefiting?

At my current company, all but one of the coworkers I have these conversations with are women. Part of that is by design, part by dumb luck. But since that's the scenario I find myself in, I try to be cognizant of the dynamics that might be in play with these conversations. I might be earning more, and it's always weird to hear that a colleague is earning more than you. Women are subject to more discrimination and harassment in the workplace, so I have to understand that not everyone may be comfortable with the risk of word getting out. And not everyone sees themselves as part of 'labor', in an ongoing, Marxian struggle against those who own the means of production. 

Sometimes, our talks end with a call to action. Now that we've talked, what do we want to do with the information? Since we've gotten to know each other over time and understand enough of each other's work efforts, styles, and accomplishments before jumping into this sort of intimate conversation, we can proceed with a bit of confidence with next steps. I can suggest, "I think it's only fair for you to ask for an 8% raise given what you've accomplished this year, or at least to set that as an expectation to be discussed in the next review if you meet your goals in the coming year."

These talks also give me a better perspective on my own financial situation. I sometimes get the feeling that I am underpaid: that I'm not being compensated properly. I do a good job, right? Why shouldn't I get another raise?

But when I see the efforts of people around me, often women, who daily bring value to the table, and then think about how they are paid less than me, my perspective changes. I'm not only being paid fairly, I am probably overpaid. I remind myself that I am benefiting from this unequal system we're all working in.

So instead of feeling indignant, I try to remind myself that it's obnoxious to feel unsatisfied with my pay, since it's already unfairly in my favor. 

And if I dig a little deeper, there's more than just a feeling of gratitude: of appreciating how good I have it. There are these hard working people around me, women and people of color, who are being paid less than what they should for no good reason. While I can't force management to address the wage gap, I can at least give a little information to my colleagues so they have a target to hit: so they aren't negotiating in the dark.

And if I really believe that we are labor, that all of us people working for companies and governments are part of some unified group, then it's kind of our duty to address the fact that a lot of women, a lot of people of color, a lot of whomever I want to think of a "labor", are not being paid enough. They are not being paid fairly, and we men and we white people are benefiting from that inequity.

What do we want to do about that?

**A quick side note. I had really wanted to discuss sharing salaries in a recent interview with Tanja Hester and Matt Lane on The Fairer Cents podcast about being an ally to women. But as soon as the interview started, my midwestern upbringing shifted into overdrive and my inner voice started chastizing me: "This is going to sound like bragging, Brian and no one likes a braggart. Besides, who are you to talk about women's issues in the first place?"  

So, of course, I said nothing about it, even though sharing salary was the one thing I planned to bring up. If you happen to listen to the episode and wonder why I have so little to bring to the conversation, now you know why, and at least I finally put my thoughts down here. 

Momma always said I had a face made for radio, but it seems I also have a crippling social anxiety better suited for print.

Nonetheless, please still give the show a listen because Matt, Tanja, Kara, and some guy that, I guess, has something to do with a television program (?) are still on the episode, and they all have lovely things to say.

As always, thanks for reading.