Our system rewards billionaires and millionaires for keeping their workers in poverty.

This program is made possible by the members and donors to the show. If you'd like to support

the work we're doing, please visit the Contribute tab at bustofleft.com. Now welcome to the award

winning Best of the Left podcast with Cups today, including a TED Talk from David Berkis,

the Tom Hartman program, Counter-Spin, TestTube News, The Young Turks, Economic Update with Professor

Richard Wolfe, and a progressive faith sermon from Reverend Dr. Roger Ray.

How much do you get paid? Don't answer that out loud. But put a number in your head.

Now, how much do you think the person sitting next to you gets paid? Again, to loud.

At work, how much do you think the person sitting in the cubicle or the desk next to you gets paid?

Do you know? Should you know? Notice it's a little uncomfortable for me to even ask you those

questions. But admit it, you kind of want to know. Most of us are uncomfortable with the idea of

broadcasting our salary, where not supposed to tell our neighbors and we're definitely not supposed

to tell our office neighbors. The assumed reason is that if everybody knew what everybody got paid,

then all hell would break loose. There'd be arguments, there'd be fights, there might even be a

few people who quit. But what if secrecy is actually the reason for all that strife? And what would

happen if we removed that secrecy? What if openness actually increased the sense of fairness and

collaboration inside a company? What would happen if we had total pay transparency? For the past

several years I've been studying the corporate and entrepreneurial leaders who question the

conventional wisdom about how to run a company. And the question of pay keeps coming up. And the

answers keep surprising. It turns out that pay transparency, sharing salaries openly across a company,

makes for a better workplace for both the employee and for the organization. When people don't know how

their pay compares to their peers, they're more likely to feel underpaid and maybe even discriminated

...