Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. None of these nations have an minimim hourly wage enshrined in law. Instead many of the base terms of employment, including wages, are decided via collective bargaining between sector trade unions and representatives of public sector and business interest organizations.
Minimum wage decided by politics is something taken for granted in many parts of the world, but ultimately it’s a question that most of all affects the suppliers (employees) and buyers (employers). The government will always be behind the times in legislation and have many other interests to juggle than yours - don’t just be a passive participant in the market.
I live in Sweden by the way, so feel free to ask me questions on the topic and I’ll do my best to answer.
Is it true that all wages are public?
Cause that might have something to do with the strong bargaining power of employees.
No, only in Sweden. And if you look up someone, they will be notified of who did it.
At least for Norway, this is not technically true, but it also doesn’t matter.
Unions will run surveys across their members every year, and as long as they have enough members to have bargaining power, they also have the data. So they don’t really need all wages to be public in order to negotiate.
What is public in Norway, is the total taxable income of individuals. This is meant as a measure against tax fraud, and also an annual source of entertainment as you look up local and national rankings of who paid the most taxes, check that you’re still making more than your middle school bully, and so forth. But total taxable income can contain more than wages, so that is not really the number you’re referring to, and as mentioned the union has better data anyway.
It’s true for Sweden, but it’s not exactly common to go look up what someone else earns. You have to pay for making the request and it’s not exactly convenient.
It does mean that the newspapers publish lists of who makes the most money each year though which is always a hoot.
Practically speaking I don’t think much is gained in bargaining power from wages being public
The bargaining power is probably better than the one we have in France for that matter. Asking how much someone earns is still a big taboo in here.
Yes, this is public information. You can go to the Swedish tax agency and ask for an excerpt. There are also information brokers who make it their business to collate private information that’s available publicly and publish it for a fee.
These companies have been a bit of a thorn in our side because that’s not exactly how the system was intended, and it’s made it a lot easier for e.g. stalkers to find information on you. Information like where you live, your income, your social ID number, birthdate, size of your home, if in a flat, which door is yours, sometimes even with direct instructions from the entrance. It’s bananas.
Personally I think these laws need to be looked over. I don’t think having salaries available publicly is harmful, but I’ve personally had problems with a person being able to dig up my info and harassing me. All this was different in an age where you had to report to the tax agency and request an excerpt, contra now where you can just pay a small sum to an information broker and get all of it without the system knowing who requested it.