14 July

guild follies

I'm in a guild.

Well, not really in a guild, but represented by one. The non-management employees of the company I work for are covered under the terms of the company's contract with the Greater Frobozzia Tachyonic Ansible Guild*, even if they are not members and even if they pay no dues.

The benefits package is attractive - retirement pay, 100% of family health insurance premiums paid by the employer, including vision and dental, sabbaticals, generous severance packages, and much more.

The main dude of our branch of the guild just walked by and dropped a "guild contract survey" on my desk. It asks for feedback on benefits that are important to me, what additional benefits I'd like to have, etc. There doesn't seem to be a space for listing benefits I'd like to see eliminated.

Wha' huh? Eliminated? What manner of treason is this? Am I nuts? Am I some kind of masochist? Have my libertarian tendencies blinded me to my own best interest?

Not likely.

It's very simple: suppose my value to my company is, to pick a round figure, $100,000/year. Then I won't be hired if the cost to employ me is more than that figure. The total cost C to employ me is roughly S + B + E + I, where:

S = my salary
B = the dollar cost of my benefits (insurance premiums, actuarial value of pension payments, etc.)
E = employer's portion of FICA
I = intangibles (expected loss if I initiate a lawsuit, cost of severance if I don't leave voluntarily, probabilistic cost of me going nuts and shooting the place up, etc.)

There's also some marginal cost associated with one additional record to be tracked by HR, payroll, etc.

For simplicity, we'll just say C = S + B. Then from the employer's point of view it doesn't matter if my $100k cost breaks down as $90k salary and $10k benefits, or $65k salary and $35k benefits; the only number they care about is C. So when the guild pushes for additional benefits, what I see is downward pressure on my salary. The company won't pay me more than I'm worth to them - at least not past the very short term - so any increase to B has to be balanced by a decrease in S.

As someone who makes very little use of our benefits package, I'd much prefer having benefits cut to the bone and the difference applied to a fatter salary. Since money is fungible, that would seem to be the method which gives the greatest freedom to the greatest number of people. Some could use that additional income to purchase the services previously provided by the benefits package, perhaps with the company negotiating group rates for insurance and the like, and others could blow their increase on booze and floozies. Or invest it, whatever.

Unions are anti-choice.

*Not its real name