From where I am, it seems the job markets shat their pants. At least in this putrid hell city I am living in, job markets seem to have shat their pants. I am wondering why is that.
Why, dear employers, why, dear so-called hiring people? What are you scared of?
This article is about the so-called Pay Transparency directive (initiative) of the European Union, and mainly about the effects that I assume it will cause. Anything in this article is just an assumption.
Since employers switched the mute mode on when it comes about this initiative, then the government is on mute, too about this EU initiative, I need to assume things. Anything in this article is an just assumption. This is because no open and blunt communication that can be heard on the bottom of the society, or anywhere in the society, has been made regarding Pay Transparency in the EU so far. Nobody speaks about it clearly. It is just smoke and mirrors.
If you are curious enough about the 'upcoming Anarchy that this initiative is supposed to cause' (HR talking, not me), then you can find some information.. But this is by far not enough.
So what do we know about it? What's so frightening for employers?
1) Employers will need to communicate the salary range for the job in advance of any job interview. Maybe they will need to communicate this in the job ads. Now Employers are not communicating wage ranges (in Hungary for sure).
Well, this would be quite a huge contrast as compared to the employers' present practice which is asking the candidate's wage expectation beforehand, and then auto-reject if the applicant is asking a dime more than the minimal wage.
2) The initiative would give employees a tiny little possibility: employees could ask some kind of report or information about the the salary level of their current role (about the salary in average they pay for other employees in the same role), and employers are supposed to provide this information to them - once a year. And providing we are talking about the same role, the diff in wages cannot exceed 5%. I can assume this one made the empoyers shit their pants. I just don't understand why.
Is it because it would make impossible for you to use the yearly 'performance assesments' against the employees that are not submissive enough for you? Maybe the managers are revolting against the EU initiative because it would decrease their authoritarian power?
There was an easy way to get rid off of any emplyee that outperformed the manager so an employee he was afraid of. This was the so-called yearly 'performance review'. All that a greedy manager should do was to give an unfairly low point in the performance review to its employee.
This also meant no pay increase for the employee, so providing the other 'good performer' employees received 10% or more payrise (in high inflation countries), the personal development plan and the low point in 'performance review' meant effective decrease of salary for the employee who's been bullied by the manager.
Now this ends, if I understand the initiative well.
I think no manager deserves this kind of power. No manager should be able to decide about an employee's fate alone. Unfortunately they can these days. This authority should end.
So in the end, it seems companies are unhappy about the loss of a tiny part of their authoritarian methods. If the reason for smoke and mirrors regarding this initiative is my point 2, so a tiny little door that would open for employees, then this is despicable. Since I see or hear nothing regarding the realization of the Pay Transparency initiative that would benefit me as an unemployed person seeking for employment, and I see or hear nothing that would benefit me as a future employee, I should assume things.
When I assume things, I cannot help but assume employers are selfish, greedy, despicable and they are planning to act against their own employees (who are sometimes their customers too) just because they needed to find more sophisticated ways to practice authoritarian power before firing people.
The lack of information regarding anything is aching. I want to see concrete hard information, concrete hard laws that open doors for employees and close despicable authoritarian ways for the companies. I want to make sure that employers get significantly less opportunity to fire me the next time they start to hype about cost cuts and job cuts so that they can 'invest' in some idiotic fashion.
I'm afraid this initiative will not be the one that fulfills my wish for real wage transparency, for less dictatorship on the European workplaces, for less authoritarian treatement that employers in Europe use against people living here.
Also there is a much easier way to give back some bargaining power to the employees in the job market (since this is what empoyers don't want to hear about). Massive rise of job openings. If needed, the state should create jobs in massive amount, because employers won't. A rise in available workplaces would give us bargaining power and this is what we desperately need in this situation.
Workplaces are full of tension. Everyone remembers Covid. Everyone remembers 2008. What will stop employers from being despicable the next time?
Nothing, unless there is a massive amount of employees who are self-conscious and who have options.