Workplace Worldwide: Kimberly Nguyen, The Poet Laureate of Pay Transparency 📓 🏆 (Part One)
Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - You're about to listen to Workplace Worldwide, a podcast featuring news, deep dives and interviews about our workplaces and workers rights worldwide.
Speaker 2 (00:00:10) - Another one.
Speaker 3 (00:00:23) - Ladies. Ladies guides gentle them. And yes, maybe even Men Love You is welcome to another episode of Workplace Worldwide. On today's show, we are speaking with the poet laureate of Pay Equity. More on that title later. And that poet laureate in question is Kimberly Nguyen. Now, what began as an unintentional viral tweet has spawned a broad conversation on pay equity amongst changing legislation in New York State where this is all happening. So you don't know the full story yet. But I just want to tell you before we get into it that I've been following this story from the very sort of beginnings when it was just starting to catch on on Twitter. This was before I think it was before the Blue Trekker experience. But essentially what started as a tweet that sort of did the rounds amongst the usuals on Twitter quickly began to go viral and watching safely from a power of social distance.
Speaker 3 (00:01:26) - All of these conversations unfold. It struck me that it was firstly a very brave thing just to put out there the way Kimberly put this very common problem that I see a lot in work, just boom on a table, nothing special. Just like this is egregious for people to comment on. And to also go on to articulate the reasons not only for the tweet, but the concepts behind it around pay equity. I just thought that it was articulated very well. And as I say, I thought that it was a particularly brave thing to do. So ultimately for me, Kimberly Story is unique and there are there are acute experiences that are worth talking about, but it is also a story that represents so many people's stories. Now I'm going to give you the super fancy, very cool bio so you can be fully impressed by Kimberly CV. And we're going to get right into that interview. Kimberly Nguyen is a Vietnamese American poet and author of Ghosts in the Stalks. And here I am, Burn Me. She resides in New York City and originally came from Omaha, Nebraska.
Speaker 3 (00:02:36) - Kimberly is a graduate of Vassar College and she holds a degree in English and Russian studies with a study abroad experience in the University of Exeter in the UK. Kimberly has fast accrued accolades, including the Beatrice d'Or, Brown Prize, two Best of the Net nominations and finalist positions for the Andamans 2021 Mentorship Lab and the Asian American Writers Workshop 2022 Margins Fellowship. Kimberly served as a 2021 Emerging Voices Fellow at Pen America and currently holds the position of 2022 2023. Poetry Coalition Fellow. In 2022, Kimberly was hired for a UX writing role at Citibank through an agency and she is still employed in that role via that agency. As of today. Kimberly posted a tweet reading my company just listed on LinkedIn a job posting for what I am currently doing in brackets. So we're hiring another UX writer. And now, thanks to salary transparency laws, I see that they intend to pay this person 32 to 90 K more than they currently pay me, so I applied. So for context, this is an interesting premise that she applied for that job, first of all.
Speaker 3 (00:03:51) - But this tweet has 12.5 million views, 220 likes and 12.5 retweets. Quote tweets. Something about seeing your own job advertised with substantially better pay resonated with the Internet and the media coverage just really pivoted to the topic of pay transparency with Kimberly posting updates through March 9th, 2023 with the final tweet. LOL pretty sure my job just tried to call me to yell at me, Catch me living under a bridge next week. Pay somebody. So. You get it? You get the story here. Kimberly is working at her job. She sees that job advertised on LinkedIn, paying out substantially higher than what she is receiving. She applies for the job. Let's get into this interview. Kimberly, thank you so much for joining us. It goes without asking, but I'm going to kick it off like this. Did you expect this tweet on March 7th to blow up like this? And have you ever had an experience like this?
Speaker 4 (00:05:10) - Uh, no. I definitely did not expect my tweet to blow up this way.
Speaker 4 (00:05:15) - If I'm being really honest, I was just kind of like venting my frustration on Twitter. And I just have a couple of, like, writer friends who follow me on Twitter, and normally they send me like an unhappy face emoji, virtually like pat me on the head and then we move on. But then a lot of people started getting very secondhand angry for me. So I've never had a tweet blow up to this magnitude before.
Speaker 3 (00:05:40) - Was it something that you kind of think we all have this awareness of the one day that a tweet goes viral or something like that? Was it really just that moment of like, oh, this was the thing? Like, this was the thing that people got secondhand angry for and came in to bat for me for? Was it sort of that surreal sense of that?
Speaker 4 (00:06:01) - Yeah. I mean, I feel like this is probably a unique tweet that I have tweeted. I don't usually tweet like things about my day job because I don't Yeah, yeah. Like it's my poetry Twitter.
Speaker 4 (00:06:11) - So I usually try to tweet a lot of stuff like related to to my poetry work for the first time or like one of the first Times made a tweet about my day job for it to like blow up like this. And I had actually at some point shut off notifications on my Twitter just because, like I didn't they were distracting. And so I didn't even notice this was happening until had like opened up the Twitter app just because I was, you know, waiting for a plane and then getting ready to board a plane and then seeing like all of the notifications flood in and being like, holy shit, like, this is this is insane.
Speaker 3 (00:06:46) - Yeah, I think it's definitely one of those things that you just sort of like, Oh, okay. Like I'm in a now and we've, we've covered it off in your intro, but you did mention that you are a poet. That is sort of what you've been active about and you've obviously have a lot of accolades for for your work there. But we are talking about your day job and correct me if I'm wrong, but you were a contractor in the writing space brought in by Citibank is the company and you ultimately saw your own job advertised on LinkedIn and seeing it there.
Speaker 3 (00:07:25) - You also saw that the salary range was different. So we'll get into the the nuts and bolts of the ethics there in a little bit. But. Despite your tweet being the catalyst for attention in this rather extraordinary lightning bolt of a moment being the catalyst, it seems that pay inequality or pay inequity was something that you'd been discussing with your managers previous to this incident. Can you describe a little bit about what you had been experiencing in your workplace in regards to this and what you tried to communicate?
Speaker 4 (00:08:01) - Yeah. Well, so the reason this tweet or the reason I tweeted this, you know, tweet and the reason why I was so frustrated to begin with is because I was hired at the end of last October, Um, and I was hired through an agency because it's sometimes better to be a contractor through an agency because sometimes they provide things like health insurance and things like that. Um, but the salary transparency law didn't go into effect until November. And so in November, I started taking a look at other writing positions just because I was curious.
Speaker 4 (00:08:39) - I was like, What are other writers getting paid in my city? You know, with my years of experience? And there was no other writing position that was listing a salary as low as mine. Like my salary wasn't even close to the bottom range of like other companies, like writer, you know, listings. And so I brought this up to my manager at Citibank who said that, you know, city doesn't have any control over how much I get paid. That is all the agencies jurisdiction. So they said I would have to go back through my agency. So I went to my agency and I wrote them an email and I said, Hey, you know, I'm not really getting paid what my market value is. Can can we have a discussion? And they said that due to their processes, I needed to go through a performance review and that in fact they were making an exception for me because I hadn't been there long enough to actually go through a performance review. And so they had me go back to my managers at Citi and like get a bunch of recommendations and like testimonies about how good my work was.
Speaker 4 (00:09:46) - But it wasn't like to me, I pointed out to them, I was like, this is not I'm not asking for a merit increase. Like I'm not I'm not asking for promotion by any means. Like I'm asking for a salary correction. And they said, you know, we understand that, but you have to go through this process. It's standard. Everybody has to go through this process. Said, You know what? Okay, fine. So I did all of that. And then they told me that I would be notified about the status of my my request by March. So at the beginning of March, I reached out to them again and I said, Hey, you know, I'm checking in. You told me I would hear back about this. You know, what is the status? They said, well, actually, you'll hear back by the end of March. So I guess the tweet happened in between the beginning and the end of March. But at the end of March, there was no update.
Speaker 4 (00:10:35) - And they told everybody who is on the same performance review cycle, oh, you'll hear back by the end of April. At the end of April, we messaged them again and they said, Actually, we're putting performance reviews on hold across the board. Nobody's getting a raise with the company. Um, and I think in a meeting last week they said they would reevaluate in July. So at this point I've just been kind of getting the runaround from the agency for about six months and. There's not really anything that I can do about it. And like, I can't I can't, like, ask my managers at Citi. You don't need to do anything either because they keep pointing you back to the agency and they say that this is 100% of the agency's jurisdiction. So I kind of have to play by their rules. Um, and so that is like all of the frustration that was leading up to this tweet.
Speaker 3 (00:11:25) - Wow. Well, I mean, it's interesting because you see, you know, we see something that takes us five seconds to read.
Speaker 3 (00:11:32) - But but now I truly can comprehend that level of just like. Mm. Like pure as you say, frustration that they've put you through those processes. And also it's very disappointing to hear that something so public mean it wasn't a quiet story. It was on Good Morning America. Yeah. And they're still not completing the performance reviews. They're still not following through on those things. And I kind of it really makes you assess the situation is like, like you said, you just being given the runaround. You're being put into a never ending circle. What chance does any worker have? Uh, because you're also asking for something, which is. A base fundamental right. You know, you are asking to be paid the market value for the role you've been performing. And they're just yeah, they seem to be continuing to pay you that rate despite everything.
Speaker 4 (00:12:23) - I mean, at this point, I would honestly be happy with like a cost of living raise, like because I'm not getting anything at all. And like Social Security recipients, I think in 2023 got an 8.5% raise or something like that in typical cost of living, raises are like 2%.
Speaker 4 (00:12:41) - So like at this point I'd take anything, but they're really insistent on giving me nothing.
Speaker 3 (00:12:48) - And is this a is this also something you mentioned your coworkers before? This is something that many people are experiencing at the current moment.
Speaker 4 (00:12:56) - Yes, I did reach out to my coworkers just because I wanted to make sure that I wasn't the only person in this boat. And in fact, I was actually hoping to get like a little bit of leverage because I was like, well, maybe if I can, you know, say that my other coworkers are making more, I can use their salary as a way to leverage myself into, you know, a higher salary or if they're getting like different perks than me could I could also use that as leverage. Turns out that everybody is pretty unhappy with their salary. Um, everyone's pretty unhappy with the benefits. And so everyone was pretty, I think, shocked and insulted seeing the listing go up with that salary that no one is making as a contractor. I think that like the problem is in the short term, it makes a lot of sense to hire contractors and just like outsource all of the recruiting and the onboarding and the stuff to an agency, that way you don't have to keep people, you know, internally who need to do that.
Speaker 4 (00:13:54) - You don't need to add more people. You don't need to add more recruiters or add to the workload of the current recruiters. You literally just pay an agency to do all of that. And also you kind of get to like wipe your hands free of everything. You get to say, You know what, agency, this is all your problem. You determine the salary, you determine the benefits. You determine all of these things that we don't have the time or the resources to determine. But in the long term, I just don't think that this is going to work out for them because. People have a difficult time signing on to be unhappy for an extended period of time. You're kind of breeding a really bad team culture. There's a lot of resentment between the contractors and the full time employees, especially now that we know how much they make compared to us, and especially when we've been promised for for so many months and months that eventually we will be in line to be converted. That's that's the goal for all of us, is to be converted.
Speaker 4 (00:14:52) - None of us have signed up to be contractors forever. Yes, there are people who do sign up to be freelancers, contractors forever. But we are not like none of us are in that situation where we decided this is the life that we want. So we've kind of all signed up to be contractors in the hope of getting converted and like for us to continually, like get the runaround and to kind of lose trust in our leaders. Like, I mean, that's not going to work out for the organization in the long run. It's not a good business model to run off of.
Speaker 3 (00:15:25) - I think I would agree and I had a question here about other red flags that you are noticing prior to to this tweet. And I guess we're getting into them. And you mentioned erosion of trust. You know, think that that's like you said, there's sort of this uncontacted agreement of, yes, the contract says, you know, contract, but we are telling you that we hope to convert this into a permanent role that has a lot of value.
Speaker 3 (00:15:55) - Like you've noted, it contributes to the erosion to trust. Would you like to to add anything to this red flag or raise any others about your experiences?
Speaker 4 (00:16:07) - Yeah. I mean, okay, so the recruiting process of this role was pretty chaotic. I had actually applied to a different role at the contracting agency and they had reached out to me to say that that role had actually been cancelled. And so I didn't expect to hear back from them ever again. But then a couple months later, they reached out and they said, Hey, we have a copywriting role. Is that something you would be interested in? And I said, Actually, that's actually better than the role that I had originally applied for. I'd rather be a copywriter. Um, but they did not tell me what the scope of the work was. I wasn't really given a job description. They just said it's a copywriter role. And I just kind of assumed that I knew what that was because, you know, from company to company, most copywriting roles are not that different.
Speaker 4 (00:16:55) - You're generally writing the same types of materials just for a different purpose. And so. The kind of the biggest red flag for me. And I also thought maybe this agency was a scam or that they were. Yeah. Like they were hiring scam was they made me sign this like, contract agreeing to a title and a salary before even scheduling me or allowing me to be scheduled for an interview with their client city. And I thought that was kind of weird. I'd never encountered anything like that, but I was like, maybe. Maybe this is a thing that they do at agencies. I've never really worked for an agency like this before. Maybe this is like standard practice for them. So I looked to the contract. Nothing like seemed red flag about the contract. There were a lot of like addendums specific to like working in financial services and things like that. So I was like, okay, maybe this is not a scam. Um, but I had already like sign this document agreeing to a title and a salary.
Speaker 4 (00:17:50) - And I got into the interview and realized that the role was actually not like general copywriting. It's UX writing, which is a different skill set and a different like market value and so by the time that like I had been hired on, it was kind of like already too late, like my ability to like negotiate my salary and like, you know, negotiate for more compensation. It kind of already been taken away from me because like, they do their negotiation process, like before you, before they send you a contract and before they schedule you for an interview. So I was kind of locked into, you know, the salary that I'm making. Um. So there are a lot of red flags leading up to this process. But I was willing to sign on. Yeah, well, I was willing to sign on because like in the interview my manager said, you know, this is basically the only way that you like we do hiring. We we hire contractors. And then after a period of six months, then you are eligible for conversion.
Speaker 4 (00:18:48) - And so in our goal is to convert everybody. So I was like, okay, I mean, I can do this for six months, I can I can deal with this catchiness for like six months. But upon getting into the role, I realized that there had been people who had been there for two years or over two years who hadn't been converted yet. And. We're told that we get converted in the order that we are hired. And so me being at the back of the line and then seeing that there were people in front of me who had been here for for two years and still a contractor, I was shocked. And so, I mean, I think it really made me want to advocate for a higher salary at my agency because I knew that I was going to be there for a while. It was no longer the case where I felt this was a temporary situation, like I was going to be stuck here for for a hot second.
Speaker 3 (00:19:44) - Yeah. And it seems like it's the only proactive thing you could do to better the circumstances.
Speaker 3 (00:19:49) - Um, and it feels mean going back to that original contract as well, that it's like ten red flags in one, you know, applying for a role that is different and sort of having you agree onto that salary, that's really not good, but it is kind of starting to sound like they've got a really nice little business model of employment here, maybe where people are doing that thing of sticking it out and sort of seeing it through. One question that I was thinking about then, you know, because you are kind of like stuck between a rock and a hard place, so you're hired by a contracting firm. You sort of pre sign off on the main conditions of your employment. But the city gives you like policies like diversity, equity and inclusion. Like do they do fair pay policies? Like what did you get in terms of that?
Speaker 4 (00:20:39) - I mean, they have. They have like campaigns for diversity, equity and inclusion. But. I guess I just don't see any, like, tangible effects coming from diversity, equity and inclusion just because, like, I am not technically an employee of city.
Speaker 4 (00:20:57) - Like I know internally we have like our diversity or affinity groups. Like we have like an Asian employees group or we have like Hispanic employees group, but contractors are not allowed to be part of these groups. So we're kind of excluded even though like we we work there. We work alongside, you know, these employees. I'm sure there's also like, an interesting. Yeah. Um, I don't know. We have, like, we have all these meetings where they, they always like, like for Women's History Month, they're like, oh, let me, let me recommend you a book that I read recently for Women's History Month. And I'm like, Well, maybe I could get paid more for Women's History Month. I don't know. You know.
Speaker 3 (00:21:45) - Yeah, yeah. Even even just the basic market value. Like, that's the weirdest thing about all of that. I mean it's. Yeah, let's get, let's get a little bit more into the, the job ad side of things now. You see the job ad can you give us a little bit more color about that moment, exactly what you see and then sort of your observations and experiences in those 24 to 48 hours after?
Speaker 4 (00:22:13) - Yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:22:13) - So just to be clear, that job ad was not for the role at my agency. It was specifically at Citibank and. I felt like before. Before when I was, like, advocating for myself for a higher salary, I was kind of going off numbers from, like, other companies. I'm like, Well, this is what other companies are doing.
Speaker 3 (00:22:37) - We are going to end it here for part one of our interview with Kimberly. You do not want to miss the next part either. It's a very interesting conversation. And given the status of the WGA and SAG strikes, I think that we touch on some pretty poignant issues in that conversation. Thank you so much for joining us and thank you to Kimberly for being on the show. We will see you next time on Workplace. Worldwide. Workplace Worldwide is produced by Kate Bailey and the team at Hand and Heart Media. For any inquiries related to this broadcast, please email HQ at Hand and Heart EU and don't forget to follow us on the gram at hand and heart EU.
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