LMG forbids their workers from discussing wages, not just with outsiders but even amongst each other. Clarification needed.

[Ultraforce]

17 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

Do you know that they are not?

Linus has previously stated that in interviews they don't want to tell people how much they are paid. This happened a few months ago and also cause controversy because knowing what to expect wage wise when applying for a job can be useful. Though policy might have changed since then.

[NekoBubbles]

On 2/18/2023 at 7:47 PM, crazzp said:

Linus mentioned that their starting pay is on the lower side. But that's nothing wrong.

 

That may be true but that's their company policy. The question shouldn't be if they have such policy but why did they have such policy.

Low wage starting pay is something that happens EVERYWHERE. Its called "entry level work" or "grunt" work and its low wage for a reason. Is cause its mostly NON skilled labor. In western societies we live in a culture that generally the majority of the time its all about if you want higher pay you gotta then be willing to prove first you have the value that earns the higher wage. Its not just suddenly gonna appear in your lap. 

[NekoBubbles]

3 hours ago, Arika S said:

Classic forum response.

 

And those Americans will be laughed at for thinking they are the centre of everything. In Australia such a clause would also be illegal, but couldn't care less about a company in a different country restricting it. you know what could actually be illegal? an ex-employee leaking internal company documents.

 

LMG is not holding their employees hostage, LMG is not the only place people can work, hell it's not even an entry level job (like amazon). These policies (assuming they are true) only affect 1 group of people: LMG employees.

 

But i guess the "they are a private company" only works some of the time.

America at least the US is the bottom of the barrel in terms of jobs and classifying job classification. Most contract jobs are "at will" classed meaning you have ZERO job security. You're employer reserves the right to space you out the metaphorical air lock if they  wanted to and you can't do squat and they can do it at any time. It could be as little as sneezing in a way they don't like and you can get "let go." Oh and most contract roles are so obscure you can't even get unemployment.  

[jeo]

I think there a two main factors a play here.

First is the legality of LMG forbidding employees from discussing compensation details with each other and/or outside parities. I am not an expert on BC labor law but I am pretty sure LMG is well within their rights to do this (expect with regard to legal counsel, if an employee hired a lawyer and told them their comp LMG would not be able to use that as grounds for dismissal).

 

The second issue is the morality of prohibiting pay transparency, as well as the feasibility of allowing it.

There has been a large amount of research on this topic and almost all of it shows that pay transparency help to create a fair environment for everyone (in particular it benefit groups who have historically been underpaid).

There is no evidence to suggest that LMG has unfair pay policies, however this does not mean they shouldn't strive to be better. They can help to set an example of how a company can act responsibly.

Proactive policies on pay transparency have a lot of similarities with the right to repair. Even if the law does not require it, it doesn't not mean corporations shouldn't aim to achieve it. Yes it can be hard and hurt the short term bottom line, but in the long run it is the right thing to do.

 

 

[Omni-Owl]

9 hours ago, IkeaGnome said:

It's one thing to say "I don't like this company's policies and therefore I'll no longer be giving it my money" It's another thing to cross that line into "cancel culture" and say things that are factually false. Repeating something that is not fact many times does not magically make it fact. 

Just to make it clear. The concept of cancel culture, which is mostly a myth anyway it's closer to harassment, few people have actually ever been "cancelled" and not just continued after the storm stopped. It's a perceived problem not necessarily something that sticks nor is as effective as many reactionaries think. (The term cancel culture has also been used by so many people now that it's hard to outright define it).

 

Besides the concept does not make people who engage with it inherently wrong as you seem to imply. There have been online campaigns that spread actual fact about horrible people which was considered cancel culture, yet it doesn't mean they were wrong.

9 hours ago, IkeaGnome said:

Current echo chambers make it all too easily to go too far, make things that aren't facts seem like facts, and cause more problems for others than we should. 

The LTT forums are just as much an echo chamber, just FYI. Not separate from echo chambers as seem implied.

[RasmusDC]

It is fun... now the WFH 2 days thing, i work in development, and seriously people that believe that 5 days at home just works, are kidding them selves, in some jobs.. it might, but i collab jobs, no .. it might work for the individual but not the person around them, i would even have a problem saying 2 days are okay even though i have it now, and i do use a few.. at times..

 

The next things.. just fun to read..

 

when you learn about all the dirty tricks in the book from an employeer to maximize earnings it is often to

 

Kill Unionization and to keep wages confidential.. to keep them low. i am not a big fan over over unionization, but in places, like the US(Know this is canada) it is needed because you are so far from LIVABLE wages..

 

And this also seems like abuse of young people directly out from school. 

 

i do not want put this into perspective with LTT in particular, but if there is something that would give our workers safety why would you stop it unless it was because of profit. or other elements that were "you focused"...

 

Here it is actually illigal to force people NOT to share salaries, also showed a HUGE impact in both game development and Google when people went public, to at least create fair wages in some areas.

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, Omni-Owl said:

Just to make it clear. The concept of cancel culture, which is mostly a myth anyway it's closer to harassment, few people have actually ever been "cancelled" and not just continued after the storm stopped. It's a perceived problem not necessarily something that sticks nor is as effective as many reactionaries think. (The term cancel culture has also been used by so many people now that it's hard to outright define it).

 

Cancel culture is a very simple term that only means ones contract has been cancelled due to a public indiscretion that is not favorable to current social narrative.   It is real and does happen, just not always because someone says they only believe in 2 genders.

 

 

[Avocado Diaboli]

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

Cancel culture is a very simple term that only means ones contract has been cancelled due to a public indiscretion that is not favorable to current social narrative.   It is real and does happen, just not always because someone says they only believe in 2 genders.

By that very simplistic definition, cancel culture has been a thing since time immemorial. Social pariahs have always existed and disassociation was always a consequence. Therefore, it's not useful to get worked up about it or pretend that it's something novel or worth consideration. The only people getting upset about it are the ones standing still in an evolving world that threatens to change around them without the courtesy of stopping to not hurt their feelings. Basically this:

 

 

Anyway, regarding this thread in general, this seems like a lot of effort on what appears to be a nothingburger at best. Tenuous claims built on untrustworthy evidence and a lot of speculation from anyone commenting on it.

 

If (and yes, this is purely hypothetical) LMG really crack down on employees discussing their earnings, then fuck 'em. And that's true for any company anywhere on the planet engaging in that behavior. I'm not much concerned about the legality of the practice anywhere, I'm arguing from ideals not any status quo, because the latter is not a useful discussion to have. And I refuse to pretend there's justification in claiming "well in my country this practice is perfectly legal, so that makes it ethically above board". That's a weak argument that leads to circular reasoning where you can excuse any behavior by going through the charade of writing it down in the big book of laws. And worse, it legitimizes any sort of laws that discriminate based on arbitrary factors like race and sex. Because hey, racism apparently isn't bad if the Jim Crow laws legitimized it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. If you ever find yourself defending something with the claim "well the law says", you've already lost the argument, because you're not arguing in good faith. Anything can be passed into law if enough people will it.

 

Anyway, I have no reason to believe either side here implicitly. Could I see LMG potentially restricting employees discussing their compensation based on Linus' stance in a variety of other situations, specifically vis-à-vis unions? Absolutely. Is that proof of anything? No. And in the absence of evidence, in dubio pro reo.

[Donut417]

7 hours ago, NekoBubbles said:

at will" classed meaning you have ZERO job security. You're employer reserves the right to space you out the metaphorical air lock if they  wanted to and you can't do squat and they can do it at any time.

I live in a At Will state. Most employers will not fire you for no reason. There are still labor laws that protect against discrimination. As a result most employers will provided several write ups just so they can have a valid reason to get rid of you. That protects them from being sued. 

[IkeaGnome]

3 hours ago, Omni-Owl said:

The LTT forums are just as much an echo chamber, just FYI. Not separate from echo chambers as seem implied.

It wasn’t meant to be implied that this place isn’t an echo chamber. It is. 

[dogwitch]

2 hours ago, Donut417 said:

I live in a At Will state. Most employers will not fire you for no reason. There are still labor laws that protect against discrimination. As a result most employers will provided several write ups just so they can have a valid reason to get rid of you. That protects them from being sued. 

Different countries. different laws on the matter.

[LAwLz]

This threads reminds me of when Linus was called out for including possibly illegal and unenforceable anti-competition clauses in his employee contracts.

His responds to that was that:

1) Having that attitude would make someone "un-hireable" (basically threatening to not hire someone for standing up for their employee rights).

2) If you come after Linus and point out that he is breaking Canadian employee rights laws, he will no longer consider you a friend and will do the bare minimum the law requires him to do. Basically, he will treat you worse than his other employees that are okay with forfeiting their rights.

 

 

 

 

I am not at all surprised that the LMG employee contracts contains a bunch of very restrictive things that only serve to benefit Linus. I haven't read the thread but I am sure a lot of people have already jumped in to defend Linus by saying he might not be breaking any law so therefore there is nothing we can do, because the concept of holding someone to a higher standard is foreign to them.

It's like with the "their platform their rules" argument. Except in this case it's "his company, his rules". If that is being said in this thread (I am sure it has been) then it is probably from people who don't want to deflect and change the subject. They know what Linus is doing is bad, but rather than discuss that they try and shift the discussing to something that will keep the status quo and distract from Linus being a bad person.

 

 

It's okay to hold companies and people to a standard higher than the bare minimum dictated by law. It is also okay to admit that your idol might not be perfect and have areas where they can improve. 

[Stahlmann]

Quote

They have to write, build, prepare, shoot, and get the video to the editors for review each week with essentially no backup. It appears to be hell. There is no incentive for them to change this since, in Linuses own words, "we can't not do 7 a week anymore," therefore instead of employing more writers to pick up the slack and give them a 2 week schedule or better, they constantly rush around and leave a huge mess for logistics and others to clear up. Think of all the new hire names in the end credits of videos you've seen before.

I refer you to Jobs - Linus Media Group — Linus Media Group

 

They're constantly hiring new writing staff and the team is getting bigger practically every month, while main channel video output stays the same. And most employees who get past the probation period are still part of the team. So that basically invalidates that whole argument.

 

Back to the whole salary argument. It's actually illegal to forbid that in most places. Still, most employers put it in the contract even though it's not applicable. And most workers don't want to breach their contract even though that specific part of it isn't even legally binding. Still, talking about pay is frowned upon in most cultures. Of course there are advantages like finding out that other people get more money for the same job and then demanding the same. But there are also disadvantages like envy and the resulting toxic environment it can create.

 

I personally don't even tell my friends exactly how much i earn. I think it would actually be detremental to our relationship if we knew who gets the biggest and smallest salary.

 

Working from home also doesn't just come with advantages. You're way more likely to be distracted, your eployer needs to make sure you have the necessary equipment at home (can get really expensive with editors especially, who basically need a 2nd workstation including their expensive HDR mastering monitors for example) to do the same work as in the office, they have no real way of tracking your time (pretty big problem if you're payed by the hour) and there is a lot of extra work for the sys-admins. I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect certain positions to be present at the office, or at least have them show up a few days every week.

 

If you really have such a big focus on salary or WFH, then you should have made that clear during the job interview or at least the probation period. (This period is also meant for you to see if the job suits you, not just an easy way out if the employer doesn't like you). If there is such a big gap between expectation and reality the job was obviously not the right fit for either of you, be it LMG or the former employee.

[Donut417]

37 minutes ago, dogwitch said:

Different countries. different laws on the matter.

The person I was replying to was talking about the US. So……… 

[starsmine]

BC is one of four provinces/territories that do not have a law to protect against that clause in the handbook. 

Honestly kinda wild that. 

If the employer can not say why two employees are paid the same for the same job, then that is on the employer to rectify. there is no animosity between co-workers like some c-suites like to argue, its animosity between the employer and employee as the employee finds out they are underpaid and taken for a ride. Hiding this information is a power play that only benefits the very top of an org. 

LMG may be following the law in BC, but from my initial search there has been a significant legislative push the last year to rectify the law to meet modern employment ethical standards, so we will see in the future. 

(tangential, Linus's opinions on unions is whack, I understand and sympathize with what he think he means, but its a job and he has unbalanced power, unions level that).

open discussion on compensation should be encouraged as a basic worker right. 

[dogwitch]

14 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

The person I was replying to was talking about the US. So……… 

true but a lot of people think ltt is in usa for some odd reason ... online

[Omni-Owl]

4 hours ago, Stahlmann said:

But there are also disadvantages like envy and the resulting toxic environment it can create.

Citation needed here. Almost all research done on this subject does not support your argument. It's the opposite.

If anything the "toxic enviornment" you speak of is going to be the fire lit under the management and c-suite that was being opaque to begin with. The workers have no reason to go after each other, once they have a common enemy in management and c-suite for not paying them fairly to begin with. Otherwise why hide and forbid talking about pay? If you believe in fair pay, then you must believe in the transparency it requires to keep employers accountable.

4 hours ago, Stahlmann said:

Working from home also doesn't just come with advantages. You're way more likely to be distracted, your eployer needs to make sure you have the necessary equipment at home (can get really expensive with editors especially, who basically need a 2nd workstation including their expensive HDR mastering monitors for example) to do the same work as in the office, they have no real way of tracking your time (pretty big problem if you're payed by the hour) and there is a lot of extra work for the sys-admins. I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect certain positions to be present at the office, or at least have them show up a few days every week.

This whole paragraph comes off as "Proximity Bias". You don't fundamentally trust your employees to get the work done, because you can't see them work. That's bad. That's real bad and again research points to something that doesn't support your argument. The people who cannot work from home because of what you list is not the majority of workers. If people are happy and cared for in a workplace, they will want to work, even when you aren't looking. Actually especially when you aren't looking over their shoulder, checking their every move. This is simply not good argumentation in opposition to Working from Home as a policy.

[NumLock21]

IMO discussing wages all depends on whether that person wants to reveal it or not, it's up to them, but I can see why it's forbidden. Let's say a new worker who haven't worked for 2 weeks, they go and asked other employees, who have worked there for quite some time, and they reveal how much they get paid. Now this new worker, either get jealous, starts to slack off as revenge, do some other crazy things just to protest, or simply quit. The problem with some people is, they start off on a new job, and they expect their pay wage to be the same as a CEO.

[starsmine]

15 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

IMO discussing wages all depends on whether that person wants to reveal it or not, it's up to them, but I can see why it's forbidden. Let's say a new worker who haven't worked for 2 weeks, they go and asked other employees, who have worked there for quite some time, and they reveal how much they get paid. Now this new worker, either get jealous, starts to slack off as revenge, do some other crazy things just to protest, or simply quit. The problem with some people is, they start off on a new job, and they expect their pay wage to be the same as a CEO.

That is not a thing that ever happens. Its a made up story by managers so managers can have leverage. 

But yes, wage transparency does not mean you are required to share, just that there is no punishments or a work culture that discourages it.

[Omni-Owl]

27 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

IMO discussing wages all depends on whether that person wants to reveal it or not, it's up to them, but I can see why it's forbidden. Let's say a new worker who haven't worked for 2 weeks, they go and asked other employees, who have worked there for quite some time, and they reveal how much they get paid. Now this new worker, either get jealous, starts to slack off as revenge, do some other crazy things just to protest, or simply quit. The problem with some people is, they start off on a new job, and they expect their pay wage to be the same as a CEO.

Research does not support this argument.

[NumLock21]

8 minutes ago, starsmine said:

That is not a thing that ever happens. Its a made up story by managers so managers can have leverage. 

But yes, wage transparency does not mean you are required to share, just that there is no punishments or a work culture that discourages it.

 

I'm sure LMG would have told that ex-employee how much they're getting paid, so they must've know, liked how much they're getting and took the job. If they don't like the pay, then why take job in the first place. They can just go and find some other place to work.

[NumLock21]

58 minutes ago, Omni-Owl said:

Research does not support this argument.

So you have claim to this research?

I can see the point from the employee wanting to know what others are getting so they can get their equal amount of pay. I can also see why employers don't want their employees to discuss their pay, as it creates a unstable work environment, the last thing a employer want is people quitting here and there. Put yourself as a employer and you have your employees leaving left and right, how would you handle the situation. Do you see yourself as a bad employer who doesn't give equal pay to your employees.

 

I guess LMG can have a meeting on pay day where they show the ranking of each employee and how they get paid so, those got less can be motivated to work harder so they climb up and get the same amount as who ever is ranked #1.

 

[IkeaGnome]

2 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

I guess LMG can have a meeting on pay day where they show the ranking of each employee and how they get paid so, those got less can be motivated to work harder so they climb up and get the same amount as who ever is ranked #1.

I have a problem personally with that part. Besides my partner and I, it's no one's business how much I make. She doesn't even care to know. Part of my wages are royalties from working at the same company for coming on 10 years. I have benefits that were phased out, but I'm grandfathered in. I also have a higher tech level than we're allowed to get now that our salaried supervisors have been restructured. Used to be 2 of them, neither worked nights, so each crew had a "lead man" that acted as supervisor on nights. We now have a supervisor attached to each crew. They didn't take that tech level from those of us that had it, but no one else can get it until they restructure the supervisors again, if they ever do.

 

I wouldn't really call that fair to compare my wages with someone else. That would create a lot of animosity, and it's not like they can just remove pay from me or fire me. If they shared my wages with co workers, it created animosity and their only way to solve it is to fire me, they better have a damn good reason to fire me or it's wrongful termination/retaliation. Even in an at will state you can have wrongful termination. 

 

At the end of the day, I'm in a position where it's advantageous to myself to not have my wages shared. My base wages are shared and public knowledge in the company as all tech levels are. How much I make beyond that in royalties and monthly bonus isn't known to other people in general out here. 

[wanderingfool2]

I actually don't have too much of an issue of workplaces putting limits on discussing wages/bonuses.  To an extent it can discourage getting into a bad behaviour concept (where it's like, well that guy is getting paid as much as me but doesn't put in as much effort).  Then the people who do put in the effort or climbing the ladder are also likely ones who wouldn't talk about their salary anyways (just observations from experience).  So at that stage you have the lower people getting in a tizzy when someone gets paid more for work that others might not feel like it's justified.  It can make for tense office politics, and then also the office politics where some people feel pressured into telling how much they made (I've seen that happen before).

 

Now in regards to the reddit post, a $50k starting salary isn't bad (where after a year it can raise to $65k).  It is a good way to assess whether or not someone is there for the job or because they enjoy it.  I don't see an issue where it's averaging 1 script a week either.  Honestly, it seems like it was just someone salty...it's evident by his post where he talks about Linus not having a real job in a decade.

 

That kind of shows how narrow minded that poster could be...based on everything that's shown throughout the videos it's actually quite clear that Linus still does put in quite a bit of hours.

 

I think it speaks volumes that the poster is complaining about having to work 15 minutes extra or sometimes 5 minutes over and not getting paid for it...I've known 9-5'ers before that insisted that they be packed and leaving strictly on time...they are a pain to work with.  Those types of people I find are the ones who bring in an attitude that can quickly turn a profitable company into a flaming dumpster fire. (I've watched it happen before).

  

On 2/18/2023 at 9:45 PM, SansVarnic said:

edit to add: if an employee does not read the contract or the handbook it would be the lack of due diligence on the part of the employee not LMG to be fully understood of the conditions laid out. Sad really.

Having seen a 10 page handbook and being pressured into reading/understanding it in like 5 minutes, I can honestly say that sometimes employers essentially pressure with the threat of the job to not do the due diligence prior to signing.  (Especially when some of them are worded in legalese, making it super difficult to properly comprehend correctly without an analysis on specific words).  That also ignores that employers aren't allowed to necessarily write what they want and employees have to stick with it.  Labor laws can and have overridden things in the past.

 

 

[NumLock21]

9 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

Quote

I have a problem personally with that part. Besides my partner and I, it's no one's business how much I make. She doesn't even care to know. Part of my wages are royalties from working at the same company for coming on 10 years. I have benefits that were phased out, but I'm grandfathered in. I also have a higher tech level than we're allowed to get now that our salaried supervisors have been restructured. Used to be 2 of them, neither worked nights, so each crew had a "lead man" that acted as supervisor on nights. We now have a supervisor attached to each crew. They didn't take that tech level from those of us that had it, but no one else can get it until they restructure the supervisors again, if they ever do.

 

I wouldn't really call that fair to compare my wages with someone else. That would create a lot of animosity, and it's not like they can just remove pay from me or fire me. If they shared my wages with co workers, it created animosity and their only way to solve it is to fire me, they better have a damn good reason to fire me or it's wrongful termination/retaliation. Even in an at will state you can have wrongful termination. 

 

At the end of the day, I'm in a position where it's advantageous to myself to not have my wages shared. My base wages are shared and public knowledge in the company as all tech levels are. How much I make beyond that in royalties and monthly bonus isn't known to other people in general out here. 

 

That's was the reason I gave that example, since some just see it from a employees point of view and expects everyone to be paid equally. Like I mentioned earlier, a new worker that expects them to get the same pay as a CEO? Please...