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Semi-Hemi-Demigod ,
@Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social avatar

The real number I'd like to know is how much value my labor is actually producing versus what they pay me.

paraphrand ,

That would be some fun transparency. You could compare ratios and that ratio would be a number people talk about.

r00ty ,
@r00ty@kbin.life avatar

They do hold that data of course, where possible. I've heard it called personal P&L.

But tbh I reckon it would only be a new source of depression to know. :p

shalafi ,

That’s actually rather easy if you work for a publicly traded corp, at least to ballpark it.

Company profits / total workers. (<-this seems facile, what am I missing?)

OTOH, beware comparisons of pay scales.

“CEOs make too much!”

Do the math. CEO pay is typically 1/100th of a penny earned, sometimes 1/1000th, not a drop in the bucket. Don’t matter. When I was a kid, sports star pay was the thing to rage about. LOL, haven’t seen a single lemming comment about that. Whatever.

“I don’t make enough!”

And that’s very likely true, but you cost far more than you think. Good rule of thumb? Double your pay, that’s what you actually cost. You make $15/hr.? Company probably pays $30, or a bit more. Company has to pay worker’s comp insurance, taxes, benefits, unemployment insurance, payroll processing fees, all that and more.

SOURCE: Worked IT for a payroll company, got the inside scoop.

AtariDump ,

but you cost far more than you think.

When companies pay peanuts compared to the C-Suite AND post record profits each year, I think the company could give me more than a 3% raise.

shalafi ,

Well, that goes without saying. I was commenting on the idea of “fair market value”.

AtariDump ,

The downvotes say otherwise.

Zoboomafoo ,
@Zoboomafoo@lemmy.world avatar

It’s impressive how deftly you avoid the comment to spout your own opinion

uriel238 ,
@uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

If you have to underpay your workers to make enough profit, then your business model sucks, and your company should fail.

Economics 1B

nandeEbisu ,

That’s pretty difficult for a lot of jobs. For someone in sales, easy, you can look at the value of the contracts they bring in. For someone who works in facilities maintenance or tech support? Good luck figuring that out.

joshthewaster ,

Profit/number of employees…

nandeEbisu ,

The issue there is not everyone is equally productive. In the most direct example someone who is more experienced with a piece of equipment or technology will often be more productive with it than someone who isn’t. That’s ignoring that different people have different competencies. If you ask me to design costumes for a TV show, I would fail miserably. If you asked a fashion designer to do my job without any training, they would likewise not be very successful at it.

There are plenty of ills that come along with capitalism, but I do think some amount of incentive will promote productivity. I don’t think that people are lazy and won’t do any work unless they are threatened with homelessness and starvation, but I do believe if an innovative strong performer in a role is not given recognition in a real tangible way, they will either leave to a place where they can get that recognition or just stop being as innovative and productive.

unfreeradical , (edited )
@unfreeradical@lemmy.world avatar

Productivity is a form of activity, not a quantity.

Systems of productivity that are organized by wage remuneration rely on processes of labor valorization, but no such process reflects any inherent or essential feature of the productive activities undertaken by any individual worker.

Production in enterprise is by social processes.

Processes of valorization have more cogency at the level of the entire enterprise, because products within the enterprise are created through the complex accumulation of many individual contributions, but are exchanged between easily separable entities, one enterprise with another, or an enterprise with a consumer, often through commodity markets.

Ultimately, there is no law of nature for resolving a distinctively quantified value of each worker’s labor.

Similarly, there is no law of nature proscribing the same rate of remuneration to each worker per unit of time contributed to the social processes of labor. A social choice for such practices would be possible to implement.

nandeEbisu ,

Except productivity isn’t a factor purely of activity. You can spend hours trying to fix something if build something and fail, because sometimes things are hard.

I think you should obviously be paid for your time as an employee, but if I hire a plumber, they spend 4 hours trying to fix a sink and it never gets fixed, I’m not hiring that plumber again.

No one’s saying you should valorize people at the top, I was just pointing out that directly quantifying value of an individual contributor who is far removed from the actual thing being sold can be really hard, if not impossible so paying someone proportionate to the direct value they create is not practical.

Of course there’s no law of nature preventing you from paying everyone exactly the same wage, companies are not some kind of fundamental unit of organization subject to physical laws. No one is arguing this, I’m just saying paying everyone the exact same thing means not just paying less productive people more, but also paying more productive people less.

Excessively verbose prose obfuscates the intent behind a post and hinders clear communication between parties undergoing a discussion as opposed to economical use of floral vocabulary which engenders a clarity of thought and facilitates a clearer flow of information allow both parties to more easily converge to an amenable conclusion.

Not sure if you’re quoting someone, but if you are it’s not actually very effective at communicating a point, especially when it’s only tangentially related to what we’re talking about. If you do find someone else has made a good point regarding a conversation you’re in, it’s more effective to paraphrase it and highlight key points that support your argument. Honestly, the quotes you picked out don’t really pertain to what we’re talking about. It’s ultimately not about what what is the best way to organize an economy, but whether or not you can directly quantify the productivity of an individual and what the effects of simply paying everyone the exact same amount regardless of productivity.

unfreeradical , (edited )
@unfreeradical@lemmy.world avatar

Again, valorization of workers’ labor depends on a process being chosen for labor valorization, and any process chosen to valorize workers’ labor is simply a process chosen.

No choice is objectivity more accurate than all others, respecting actual value of labor.

Equal rate of remuneration, for each unit of time, for every worker, is not choosing a rate different from the value of each worker’s labor, but rather choosing that each worker’s labor has equal value.

Your premise is that some worker’s labor is more valuable than others’, as an inherent or essential attribute of the activity representing the labor.

The premise is false.

Every activity of labor may be objectively described, but such a description encloses the entirety of its objective attributes.

Value is not an objective attribute.

Your objection about the plumber is a red herring.

Activities that are not productive are not relevant to a discussion over how various activities of labor are valorized, because labor is simply productive activity.

Further, the enterprise manages which task occupies each worker at each time. As long as each worker cooperates with such decisions, the worker is being productive within the enterprise, by cooperatively contributing to the social processes of production managed within the enterprise.

Your conception of some workers being more or less removed from a product is simply a subjective feeling, irrelevant to the value of the worker’s labor provided to the social processes of production within the enterprise.

nandeEbisu ,

Bruh, the comment was about being paid commensurate to the value they created and my point was that’s a very hard number to quantify for people far removed from revenue, not that they don’t provide value.

unfreeradical , (edited )
@unfreeradical@lemmy.world avatar

The value you describe does not exist.

It is not “hard to quantity”. It is completely imaginary.

I addressed your concerns, now two times in succession.

Production is social, not individual.

Products, which are collectively created, may have a particular value.

How each individual worker’s contribution is valorized is a choice among the group that created the product collectively.

nandeEbisu ,

Your premise is that some worker’s labor is more valuable than others’, as an inherent or essential attribute of the activity representing the labor.

Literally not the point I was making. If your objective is to incentivize employees to be productive and achieve some kind of monetary objective which, because of the default state of even the most populist of countries, most people need to maintain their desired standard of living, then you should pay people different amounts of money based on how well they support those objectives (and practically to overcome market forces based on how many people are willing to provide those skills you need).

yes, some people based on some combination of experience and acuity are able to churn out 10 widgets and hour instead of 5. If you are an employer that profits from selling widgets and needs to pay people to make them, and you prefer people make an effort to increase this thing that you want them to do, you should incentivise that behavior in some way. I’m not saying you should exploit people, there is some minimum amount of compensation that allows people to survive with a reasonable minimum standard of living based on the prevailing societal norms of where you live. Anthing less is not humane.

Value is not an objective attribute.

The amount of money you pay people and the amount of money your customers pay you is a very objective and generally accepted definition of value. Coincidentally, it’s also the definition of value that the original premise is using

The real number I’d like to know is how much value my labor is actually producing versus what they pay me.

They’re talking about their pay, which is a concrete number, and comparing it to the value they are producing which, based on context clues, heavily implies they are talking about monetary value. You can’t really pay someone commensurate to the emotional or utilitarian value they produce without first converting it into something monetary.

Your objection about the plumber is a red herring.

Activities that are not productive are not relevant to a discussion over how various activities of labor are valorized, because labor is simply productive activity.

It was a bit hyperbolic, but you could easily say a plumber that makes a fix that breaks in a week provides some amount of value, you get running water for a week where you would otherwise not. No matter how you wish to quantify monetary value, that is clearly worth less than a plumber who will fix you faucet so it runs for 10 years.

Your conception of some workers being more or less removed from a product is simply a subjective feeling, irrelevant to the value of the worker’s labor provided to the social processes of production within the enterprise.

No, my whole point originally is its based on how difficult it is to quantify the monetary value (the kind the original question was about) for some roles compared to others. Literally no one would say that the IT professional that ensures that sales people are able to send out emails and track sales isn’t not essential to the objective of creating monetary value by selling something to someone, but at the same time without a sales person going out and convincing people to buy a product you’re not going to get a lot of sales either. So who is ultimately responsible for the sale? Both. What fraction is due to the IT professional and what fraction is due to the sales person who does a good job understanding the customer’s needs and making a convincing argument for why you should buy the widget? That question is very difficult. Most jobs instead are built around “how do I maximize my personal profit” which is usually what people who run companies care about which brings us back to the original concern that companies will try to pay you the very least amount they are able to while still incentivizing you to do the job well enough that you provide as much net positive value to them while minimizing how much they pay you.

As far as workers being more or less removed from the product, the reason it feels easier to apply this value to a sales person is because they can clearly show they made X sales calls and garnered $Y worth of revenue or net profit to the company. So, if you really wanted to figure out the direct monetary value of the earnings brought to the company by the IT professional, you would essentially need to work out how much of the pie that the sales person brought in was due to the IT pro supporting their needs and then do this for every other role that they IT professional helps and connect those roles back to the ultimate amount of profit they generate for the company (aka value in the context of this discussion).

If you are going to pay people in something with monetary value, which most people living in most extant economic systems that have been implemented to any non-trivial degree, then you need to somehow come up with a number for what to pay this person if you want them to show up to work and perform the function you intend of them.

Final note,

You can’t just declare a definition of a word to be something completely removed from the way it is used relating to the topic being discussed then act like a point you make relating to this other definition you are choosing to use is somehow valid in the context of the original discussion.

unfreeradical , (edited )
@unfreeradical@lemmy.world avatar

Again, an enterprise is not an organization in which each worker creates some quantity of final product.

An enterprise is an organization in which all workers contribute to the social processes of production to create collectively its final products.

How the value of the products, determined at the point of sale, is distributed among the various individuals, who are associated with the enterprise, is a choice made by whoever controls the enterprise.

Different choices are preferred by different parties. Business owners pay workers the minimum possible for the labor to be provided. How workers would choose to distribute value among themselves, in any particular enterprise they might control, if owners were not claiming profits, is a choice that is theirs among themselves.

Skates ,

For someone in sales, easy, you can look at the value of the contracts they bring in.

I would argue against this. As someone whose sales guys overpromise just to get the contract signed, in order to see how much they actually bring in I would subtract the number of overtime hours/additional effort we need to invest compared to their initial sales pitch. Or, you promised feature X is delivered in the first 2 years? Well when the customer doesn’t get it and complains about it, that’s going to be subtracted from your next signing bonus.

Listen, I know the job is made so that they bring in the most contracts possible and then the techs need to figure out the rest. But if the company constantly gets in trouble with the same few big-name customers in the industry (making them not want to sign with us in the future because of unrealistic promises), maybe it’s time to consider that Sales’ approach is sometimes detrimental?

Amoeba_of_death ,

I work in professional services, and this is so true. I feel like every new client I onboard and start implementing has promises in their contract we can’t fulfill due to product limitations. Oh, it’s supposed to do X out of the box? Nope, maybe we can customize it, but that’s a weird niche requirement that’s going to take a lot of discovery and architecting.

uriel238 ,
@uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Businessmen, they drink my wine
Plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line
Know what any of it is worth

unfreeradical , (edited )
@unfreeradical@lemmy.world avatar

The full value of labor can be considered meaningfully only at the level of the whole enterprise.

You and your coworkers collectively contribute labor worth the value of the products you create collectively, minus the costs of inputs and operation.

How such value is distributed within the enterprise is simply a choice by those who control the enterprise. No objective solution is available. Owners pay each worker the minimum possible for the labor to be provided, which under current systems is different for each kind of labor, due to labor commodification over markets represented by the law of supply and demand,.

Colorcodedresistor ,

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    unfreeradical , (edited )
    @unfreeradical@lemmy.world avatar

    I am not understanding the relevance or meaning of your objection in context, but if you are seeking to protect the interests of insurance companies, then perhaps you should not be participating in a space created for advancing the interests of workers.

    Colorcodedresistor ,

    [Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

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    unfreeradical , (edited )
    @unfreeradical@lemmy.world avatar

    Doctors are not in control of society, and no society has ever been controlled dominantly by doctors. Doctors also are not a completely uniform group who all share the same values and beliefs.

    What appears is that your attitude reflects a sense of hostility and superiority, which is not representative of how every doctor looks upon every janitor, and from my own experience, such animus is quite uncommon among doctors.

    Colorcodedresistor ,

    [Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

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    unfreeradical , (edited )
    @unfreeradical@lemmy.world avatar

    I support doctors. I support janitors. I support all workers.

    I perceive no meaningful conflict among workers, and I perceive confusion in anyone who locates the overarching antagonisms in our society as between various workers based on the kinds of labor they provide.

    I still have no understanding of any objection you are giving that would seem relevant.

    I also have no idea why you are fixated on signs in the hospital, but I hope you find a way to resolve your distress.

    Colorcodedresistor ,

    [Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

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    unfreeradical , (edited )
    @unfreeradical@lemmy.world avatar

    I have been consistent. I support all workers, and have failed to apprehend your objection.

    Your comments have seemed to me generally as circuitous and distorted.

    Colorcodedresistor ,

    [Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

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    unfreeradical , (edited )
    @unfreeradical@lemmy.world avatar

    If you invoke rhetoric dismissive of the struggles or importance of workers, or of particular classes of workers, then you should not expect to be well received, regardless of any causal factors, especially since they could not be apparent to anyone else.

    lemming741 ,

    The national average is $128,502 in 2017 dollars, $160k+ today. That’s well over 3 times the median wage of $45k.

    …wikipedia.org/…/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_p…

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