Good or bad pay? Public and private sector workers judge their salaries.

Summary Wages are an essential component of the standard of living. For the vast majority of workers, the amount of their wages is of considerable importance. How do different wage earners perceive both the wage they receive and the differences between them and others? The two major surveys from which this book is drawn reveal the relationships that workers have with their wages and the meaning they attribute to their pay. They focus on the subjective ways in which wages are perceived and on the criteria of fairness to which individuals refer in order to evaluate their amount. The same questionnaire, the "SalSa" survey ("salaries as seen by employees"), was administered to a sample of employees in private and public companies, on the one hand, and to a sample of employees in the civil service, on the other. These surveys show that, from the point of view of employees, pay is never simply a sum of money to satisfy needs. It is also a way of measuring the value of the work done, its recognition by society and therefore the value of the person himself, in himself but also in relation to others. This is why the way in which individuals know, apprehend and judge their remuneration and that of others is an essential element for understanding the procedures for determining and therefore negotiating wages, but also the meaning that individuals attribute to their work.