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Users ditch Glassdoor, stunned by site adding real names without consent
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
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This is one of the most obvious potential cases of purposeful sabatoge. They were probably bribed by other big businesses to destroy their reputation so people would stop using the site.
There's nothing businesses hate more than their workers having negotiating power, and wage transparency gives them more power than they had before. There's a reason why it's considered "rude" in the US to discuss wages with co-workers; I always make a point to discuss my wage with all of my co-workers, since it's illegal for businesses to prevent that discussion.
In most other countries, it's the norm to openly discuss your wages; unions are also more common in other countries. It's just standard toxic workplace cultures trying to prevent people from getting paid what they're worth, or god forbid, forming a union.
In what countries is it custom to openly discuss salary? In Germany and most if not all countries I’ve been to professionally it is not the norm. This is of course bad for transparency/employees and good for employers.
Germany has a principle of equal treatment. The only way to ensure this is respected is to discuss wages. There is a legal precedent that makes it completely unambiguous that discussing wages is protected. It may be uncomfortable, but that's just social pressure, encouraged by companies.
https://www.hensche.de/Rechtsanwalt_Arbeitsrecht_Urteile_AGB_LAG_Mecklenburg-Vorpommern_2Sa237-09.html
Not denying that it’s legal and beneficial to discuss that. It’s unfortunately not common (yet?).
Where I live we don't really discuss salaries and I think that mostly comes down to society being tricked into believing it's a bad thing. However our national statistics agency has made salary statistics public, which means anyone easily check their salary range and see if they're being underpaid. I actually prefer that to discussing with co-workers because you end up getting a much better picture of your industry.
In my country I’m only aware of statistics published by a newspaper (source may be statista, some agency or a job portal). I find the values weird however as I earn way above the stated value for my general description. I’m in a bit of a niche however so that might work to my benefit. The statistics still feel like ‘expectation management’ to me though.
All of scandinavia. There are public registers where you can look up the salary of everyone for norway, sweden and finland. When these registers were introduced, the salaries were normalized across the whole population
In Denmark, I'm part of a union which publishes salary stats for every possible job title, management responsibility, education, in a fairly convoluted matrix. Still, this allows me to easily negotiate with companies and see how well they pay. There might be something organised by the government, but I've never had a need for it.
I like the idea of a register a lot.
Do you also talk about it though? I was in Denmark on business for a couple of weeks and I don’t recall there being a discussion about it.
In China, "How much do you make?" Is right up there with "What's your name?".
Pretty disarming for unsuspecting foreigners.
That would indeed be a WTF moment for me.
From the article that they acquired a professional social networking app so their intention is clearly to be like LinkedIn - real names, links, career history, "social". They want to monetize that information to sell to recruiters and salesmen.
So basically they're nakedly greedy and they continue to suck. I thought LinkedIn was awful but Glassdoor is a whole new level of awful.
Do you know when it became illegal to ban salary discussions in the US? All the companies I have worked for recently have mentioned it not being allowed at some point.
You cannot prevent your employees from discussing wages. It is literally illegal to do so, and you cannot reprimand people for doing so.
https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/your-rights/your-rights-to-discuss-wages
If you get suddenly laid off after doing a legally protected activity, you do have very direct recourse.
Judges aren't generally stupid, nor is the national labor board. If you do a legal thing companies hate and are suddenly fired out of the blue, it's very obvious what happened, no matter what the comapny claims. It may take time and effort, but you very may get back paid the fof the entire time you were fired.
redacted
You didn't get laid off because you discussed your wages.
You were laid off because you couldn't keep your cards close to your chest and told the company y'all had been discussing wages.
Having the right to discuss it doesn't mean you should do it in front of the boss.
concerted organizing activity is protected under the law. talking about it with your boss yourself is not organizing activity. talking about it with a coworker in front of your boss is.
this is what a job journal is for. it would prove what happened.
redacted
the law that protected concerted organizing activity is the same that took the teeth out of the unions. i want to see that law abolished, but i'm an anarchist, so i want them all gone.
It's not illegal. It's frown upon both socially and at the work culture. It makes people uncomfortable.
Doesn't mean you shouldn't. Ripping farts is frowned upon/makes people uncomfortable too.
Man, people love to make up conspiracy theories.
The article explains the motivation, which is also bad and plausible. There's no need to pull stuff out of your ass to explain it too.
While I see what you are seeing, I think people will just move to the next startup.
Also by Occam’s razor, don’t explain with malice what you can explain with stupidity
Hanlon's razor.
Fair point, but I'm wondering which part you were applying Occam's razor to - what Glassdoor did is clearly malicious!
That would be Hanlons razor. I have no idea whether it applies here.
To the part that they were bribed.
I think they are simply in the pipe dream that they will become the new LinkedIn
There is also the growing difficulty of disseminating real information from false information, but that should have been more the reviewed company's problem than Glassdoor.
Or
Think about it for more than 1 second.
They’ve been sued for liable.
Or
They’re being shit and creating a new revenue stream because constant growth and bonuses
Or
Read the article