[Gllug] VACANCY: Junior Systems Support for Unit.tv

[Jason Clifford]

On Fri, 2008-07-04 at 10:09 +0100, Paul Lee wrote:
> I can't help but feel that posting very low salaries for Linux system 
> administration roles is a kind of veiled racism/ageism.

Sorry but I'll have to call bullshit on that.

How exactly is it racism? Are you serious suggesting that there is a
real link between an advertised salary level and ethnicity? 

> What the employer is saying is that they don't have a viable business 
> model so they are in some hoping to be subsidised by taking on people 
> from overseas who can be expected to work for less money.

I employ someone and pay a similar level to that advertised in the
original post. The person I employ is English.

In the not too distant past I worked for someone else for a couple of
years and earned £12k per year.

> I've seen a marked increase in for example Polish staff (as in the 
> building and construction industry). Don't get me wrong, these people 
> are very able and hard working in many cases, but they are undoubtedly 
> being exploited by UK employers and are undercutting many UK based 
> candidates.

I know lots of Polish people who work here. They are all earning normal
market rates (considerably more than I am paying). None of them are
stupid and none of them would work for less than anyone else in the same
job.

> Even if a low paying employer takes on an older member of staff 
> (unlikely) they will hope that he has a family of some description, so 
> their business model can be subsidised by the State with tax credits and 
> other benefits.

So? If that's the salary level the employer and employee have agreed
that's between them. I'd have happily given the job here to someone
older if anyone older had applied who was any good. If the state chooses
to pay benefits in the form of tax credits that is the govt's business
rather than mine.

> These are the downsides of globalisation, yes we get cheap goods from 
> China , but we also have the destruction of professions and the middle 
> classes with more or less every "career" reduced to a casual, "burger 
> flipping" level of existence.

Really? I don't see that in any genuinely professional career. 

> And when I was employed in the Web Hosting, Domain industry I had to put 
> up with grumbles from Sysadmin / programmers on twice these salary levels!

Again I ask so what? People always grumble. You'll note that they also
continue in the job at the salary they grumble about.

Jason

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