I open this discussion as this issue arise for WMFr and its professionalization, and I believe same for others chapters. I would like to know if the foundation or others chapters who have recruited or will do it have define a wage policy and have decide a public transparency for this wages.
Wikimedia France had an employee during less than one year before we separated through a negociation.It's salary was not published but easy to find in our accounts as he was our only employee. We then recruited within a short period, 3 employees with a permanent contract and one with fixed-term contract in charge of the fundraising. So it raised the question of wage policy, equity between employees, and transparency of wages. Even more because some of this employees are former WMFr volunteers.
In France, the practice is that the wages in charities or NGOs are generally 15 to 20% below market value. Difficult to check for small organizationsbecause in France, it's culturally not easy to speak/disclose personal wage even if things are changing. Difficult also because some jobs in charities are very specific and sometimes do not have their equivalent in the job-market. If a charities or NGOs received more than 50 000 € of public money (from public administration, cities, etc.), the organization has to disclose it's more 3 highest wages, post and name of the post-holder. But most of the time, this disclosure is not easy to find for an ordinary donator as you should do where to find it, most of the time in an annex, lost in the middle of accountings documents.
We have discussions on this point on WMFr board, and personaly I'm a for the higher wages transparancy we can, for our members and donators, despite cultural curbs.
Thierry