> They've got the data which is power. The talent who actually produce the product are in the dark.
There's no reason you have to run your company this way. IN fact making salaries public within the company should very much improve things. If they are fair then what's there to hide, and if they are unfair, why is that so? And if they look unfair but aren't, then some explanation can't hurt.
Yes I have always run my companies this way. Even in a bootstrapped company people always knew how many months of cash we had on hand (sometimes scarily few!). And sometimes there were salary injustices and people pointed them out.
Typically when someone thought a salary was wrong they wouldn't complain publicly, but ask "why is the marketing VP getting so much?" And we could show salary surveys, what the VP does, etc.
This kind of attitude helps keep a company together. You know about the common attitude of engineers shitting on sales and marketing as morons or the marketing folks with contempt for the engineers who "have no imagination?" I've never had a company like that.
There's no reason you have to run your company this way. IN fact making salaries public within the company should very much improve things. If they are fair then what's there to hide, and if they are unfair, why is that so? And if they look unfair but aren't, then some explanation can't hurt.