system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Opinions welcome: justifying academic salaries by the amount of "training" someone is receiving.

I just had a conversation with two PI's about how a post-doc is a professor-in-training position, and therefore their salary is appropriate because they are being "compensated" with training on top of their salary.

Surely the explanation of the post-doc salary is actually something along the lines of supply/demand for the position, but that is not typically the response you get from academics about *why* lab personnel salaries are what they are.  At some level isn't any job in any industry a training position for the "next step"? I'm not trying to argue whether or not post-docs should be paid more, just that when we start discussing WHY they're getting the salary they are, things devolve very quickly (ie some post-docs are not aiming to be professors, so should you increase their salaries because they are not receiving the training that justifies the salary?).  

Have you had frank conversations with your colleagues about salary justifications?
gpt
“They’re getting training!” is and always has been a poor excuse for exploitation of entry-level workers. It’s no different than trying to get a discount on graphic design work by offering “exposure” as payment, it’s taking a necessary byproduct of the transaction and repackaging it as part of the compensation. The postdoc is largely a fabricated component of the academic career trajectory designed to generate a large number of desperate research staff in career limbo so they can be underpaid. It’s a disgrace.