[HN Gopher] Newsom just signed California pay transparency bill
___________________________________________________________________
Newsom just signed California pay transparency bill
Author : lsllc
Score : 140 points
Date : 2022-09-28 16:46 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.protocol.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.protocol.com)
| gibsonf1 wrote:
| I would guess that the main outcome will be more companies
| fleeing the state.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Totally unnecessary. Just make levels granular so that there's
| never a large difference in the same role. Junior developer I,
| II, III, IV. Developer I, II, III, IV. Senior developer I,
| II... Then you can post whatever salary you want, just say that
| the candidates' experience and ability matches a different
| level if you want to pay them more or less. I don't see
| anything in the bill that prohibits companies from saying "your
| performance doesn't match level X, but we are willing to offer
| level Y".
|
| Ultimately if companies want to give a candidate more money to
| seal a hire they'll find a way. If they don't want to pay a
| candidate as much they'll either just not hire them, or offer a
| different role. I suspect this will be a superficial change and
| nothing more.
| jedberg wrote:
| First off "companies fleeing the state" is way overblown. A
| couple companies moved their legal HQ, but for example the
| Tesla office in California is still expanding. They just
| "moved" for tax reasons. But the people stayed here.
|
| Secondly, I doubt many companies will leave given that all
| their competitors will also have to publish this information.
| gibsonf1 wrote:
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/adammillsap/2021/08/27/business.
| ..
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Forbes contributors are just unedited bloggers.
| triceratops wrote:
| Why should President Biden pay attention if businesses are
| "fleeing" California, as long as they're fleeing to another
| state?
| distrill wrote:
| lol
| jedberg wrote:
| That article only backs up what I said. That business
| _headquarters_ are moving but not the employees.
| no_wizard wrote:
| Its hardly the only state to do this. Many states that passed
| these laws already, such as Colorado, Connecticut, Nevada,
| Washington, New York, New Jersey and many more are introduced
| in state legislation around the country.
|
| I don't see this as anti-business either. If anything, it makes
| it easier to investigate how your competitors are paying their
| workers and act accordingly.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| CT/NV/NJ have not passed these types of public pay range laws
| yet to my knowledge, and NY state legislature did but needs
| governor to sign it.
| scarmig wrote:
| The main outcome will be companies figuring out creative ways
| to abide by the word of the law while flagrantly flouting its
| intentions.
| Zaheer wrote:
| Link to the full legislation text:
| https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...
|
| Note that this legislation primarily covers just salary ranges.
| For most tech companies equity is a large component of
| compensation. Definitely a step in the right direction
| nonetheless.
| Sindrome wrote:
| notinfuriated wrote:
| > Under the law, employers with 15 or more workers will be
| required to include pay ranges in job postings, and those with
| 100 or more employees or contractors will have to report median
| and mean hourly pay rates by job category and "each combination
| of race, ethnicity, and sex."
|
| In a company with just over 100 people, this could mean, in some
| cases, it's easy to figure out the exact salary of specific
| people in the organization. I'm skeptical this is at all good for
| privacy, but I know CA govt doesn't care about this.
| bsimpson wrote:
| "The black guy makes $22 per hour."
| bpodgursky wrote:
| The differentiation between race and ethnicity will actually
| out a ton of black hispanics even in larger organizations.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I agree the race/ethnicity and other stipulations not
| directly related to price transparency are a waste of
| resources and potentially harmful for political discourse.
| Just letting the prices be public would have solved the other
| "problems" without enabling useless dialogue about nebulous
| classifications.
| ASinclair wrote:
| Forgive my ignorance. What are the consequences of being
| outed as a black hispanic?
| saagarjha wrote:
| I assume it's a demographic that is measured on the typical
| set of questions but with a small proportion of the total
| population, making it easier to deanonymize.
| gretch wrote:
| I think they mean that this rare combination won't have the
| anonymity granted to larger groups.
|
| Some stat sheet will say "black Hispanics make $X" and
| it'll be obvious to everyone working there that it maps 1:1
| with Dave
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| jedberg wrote:
| I'm a big fan of pay transparency, but the objection noted in the
| article is a concern. If the categories are too broad, it will
| skew the data in a way that makes things look a lot worse than
| they are.
|
| But I'm sure a whole niche consulting industry will be born to
| help large companies massage their data to look good...
| giantg2 wrote:
| Exactly. The BLS does report on pay discrepancies, and those
| reports use a huge number of characteristics and controls
| compared to this. Odd that they didn't want to use that as a
| template.
| r00fus wrote:
| So how are you supposed to look up salaries by company? According
| to the shrm.com [1] article linked in TFA:
|
| "Most of the debate this year around SB 1162 focused on a public
| shaming provision that would have published pay data reports to
| the public on a state website."
|
| If that's the case, would someone need to scrape this information
| across job sites to get aggregate ranges for a company and/or job
| title?
|
| [1] https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-
| compliance/...
| endisneigh wrote:
| Good. Now we need a few things:
|
| - interquartile ranges
|
| - max spread per job title
|
| - range should be the IRS reported income, not the salary, e.g.
| TC.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Do we? I think everyone who would care about this is only
| likely to make a comment on a website and not actually push for
| it, which is a pretty good measure of whether we _need_
| something.
| jfmatth wrote:
| once again, California's asking (sorry.. demanding) that
| Government solve a problem that doesn't exist.
| factsarelolz wrote:
| How can I report companies that fail to adhere to this law or put
| insane ranges? It's already being abused by companies for
| Colorado salaries. I'm sick and tired of seeing 60-225k ranges.
| It's complete bullshit. No person filling junior position will
| ever be offered close to 225k.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Why is this a problem? The purpose of the pay range is not to
| help you in your personal negotiation. It is to inform you of
| the going price in certain markets. If you think $60k is too
| low, find a different business or a different labor market to
| sell to. If you think $225k is too low, same thing.
|
| If you want to maximize your own income, then you should obtain
| offers from competing buyers and pit them against each other.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| Companies likely already have access to your salary history
| because Equifax sells it.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29834753
|
| So if you think your salary information is private, it's not
| private from the entity most able to abuse your salary history to
| suppress your wages, a new employer.
| petilon wrote:
| This law isn't about helping companies by making your salary
| history available to them. It is about helping job seekers by
| making the salary range of the job public, so you know how much
| to expect and ask for.
| harpiaharpyja wrote:
| That's in line with what GP is saying. Companies were already
| able to get your salary history anyways.
| petilon wrote:
| Companies were, employees were not. That's why this law is
| necessary. This evens the playing field.
| digitaLandscape wrote:
| ravenstine wrote:
| As much as I understand why people would want this, I'm not
| sure that I do. It's bad enough that wages are stagnant, but
| now we're making it more difficult for people to effectively
| sell their desired pay to prospective employers? A big reason
| why my pay increased substantially is not because of bonuses
| or loyalty but because I _asked_ new employers for way more
| than what I was paid before, and this worked in part
| _because_ their job posting didn 't include a salary range,
| thereby not leading to a situation where I ask for what I
| think my time is worth and get laughed at because it's beyond
| a listed number they will inevitably low-ball on.
| koolba wrote:
| > A big reason why my pay increased substantially is not
| because of bonuses or loyalty but because I asked new
| employers for way more than what I was paid before, and
| this worked in part because their job posting didn't
| include a salary range, thereby not leading to a situation
| where I ask for what I think my time is worth ...
|
| Nothing stops you from asking for X+Y when the stated rate
| is X. All it does is give you a free floor of X in case
| your original amount was less than X.
|
| > ... and get laughed at because it's beyond a listed
| number they will inevitably low-ball on.
|
| Grow a thicker skin and laugh right back at them.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| Yeah, nowadays the first thing I talk about with a
| recruiter is "I'm only interested in jobs that can pay
| 250k+ for remote work, more for in-person" so I don't
| waste my or their time if they think $100k is a
| possibility
| boppo1 wrote:
| What kind of programming do you do?
| alistairSH wrote:
| The law doesn't appear to prevent negotiating a range
| higher than advertised. Nor does it prevent the employer
| from posting a large range.
|
| This should force employers to do a better job assessing
| what value a position provides and advertising the salary
| range appropriately. Currently, they know the value, but
| will attempt to low-ball applicants to the extent possible.
| justapassenger wrote:
| And your employees could've access your old salary data
| already. Giving access to it for prospective employee
| doesn't change it.
| hellojesus wrote:
| But now companies can collude to suppress salaries, as
| they can look up open reqs of competitors and stay within
| the same range.
|
| The only way this works out is if you can privately
| negotiate above the published range.
|
| Also, what is to keep employers from defining unique job
| categories for every role?
| bobthepanda wrote:
| * they've already been prosecuted for doing this with the
| current opaque salary system
|
| * these nightmare scenarios have not played out in
| markets where this is already the law like CO. Jobseekers
| aren't naive, they flood towards good job postings and
| leave shady practice job offers dry.
| hellojesus wrote:
| > * they've already been prosecuted for doing this with
| the current opaque salary system
|
| My point is that it will now be easier to collude, as
| public postings can be scraped by anyone, so now
| collusion isn't done privately but through public
| signaling.
| cogman10 wrote:
| It was always easy to collude. Any company of a
| significant size (100+ employees) is hiring consultants
| to determine market rates for employees. Here's the one
| mine uses [1]
|
| Making that data public only helps employees because.
|
| 1. Current employees can look at listings and realize if
| they are underpaid or overpaid.
|
| 2. New employees can skip past low wage employers
| (forcing them to raise their wages if they want more
| employees).
|
| [1] https://radford.aon.com/products/surveys/technology-
| compensa...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That is not collusion, that is just a market where supply
| of labor drastically outnumbers demand for labor.
| Indicating to suppliers of labor to supply their labor to
| different buyers.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| You can always ask / demand more than what a salary listing
| shows. I've done that for my last two jobs.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Not all industries are in such a high growth mode as tech
| was in the recent past.
|
| This provides some efficiency for workers, because there
| are companies out there who hide ranges and then low-ball
| really hard, wasting everyone's time.
| ravenstine wrote:
| > This provides some efficiency for workers, because
| there are companies out there who hide ranges and then
| low-ball really hard
|
| There is an element of psychological warfare introduced
| by having companies provide hard numbers for what they
| are willing to pay, _especially_ for industries where
| employees are less empowered than in tech. By making
| companies provide salary ranges, you 're convincing most
| employees to _not_ suggest pay that is outside of that
| boundary. People have a bias towards making choices that
| appear agreeable, even if it means choosing something
| like less pay. It 's very profitable to convince
| employees suppress their own pay.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > People have a bias towards making choices that appear
| agreeable, even if it means choosing something like less
| pay.
|
| If true, how do public pay ranges affect this negatively?
|
| Assuming your premise is correct, without the public pay
| range, employee would likely accept whatever number
| employer throws out.
|
| With the public pay range, employee can sort job listings
| and eliminate employers paying at the bottom, or at least
| reply back with "if you do not pay me as much as
| businesses X, then I will go apply there".
|
| Also, this law is for employees to know when their market
| price has risen and new coworkers are earning more.
| kingrazor wrote:
| I don't see how this changes anything. At every non-tech
| job I've ever had there was no salary negotiation, I
| either took what was offered or I didn't get the job.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Many states have salary history bans to mitigate this. It
| doesn't prevent Equifax from doing other things with your
| salary history but it isn't a factor in seeking employment if
| you are served by competent legislators.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| What makes you think discovery of the info is enforced in
| states that have those laws?
| hayst4ck wrote:
| > you are served by competent legislators.
|
| Until campaign finance law is reformed, there can be no
| expectation of competent legislation.
|
| In American government, politicians must spend significant
| amounts of time fundraising. Most of the time, the candidate
| that is most successful fundraising wins their primary. The
| general election only involves candidates who won their
| primary.
|
| So before any person gets to vote in a general election,
| people must vote in a primary election, and before people
| vote in a primary election, companies get to vote with money
| in the "fundraising election".
|
| If you've ever thought our government is more responsive to
| money than public opinion, it's because money gets to "vote"
| on political candidates before anyone else does.
|
| Here is Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig's presentation
| on this very idea:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJy8vTu66tE
|
| Here is a related political campaign:
|
| https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba/
| BurningFrog wrote:
| > _Most of the time, the candidate that is most successful
| fundraising wins their primary_
|
| This is true, but the causality is far less clear.
|
| Even without the suggested mechanism, the most popular
| candidate would be expected to get both the most votes and
| the most donations.
|
| The research on election outcomes says that enough money is
| needed to make the voters aware of who the candidate is and
| where they stand on the issues. Beyond that, more money
| does very little.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| Here is what I consider a quality article that mostly
| agrees/echo's what you said:
|
| https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/money-and-elections-
| a-c...
|
| The article mostly agrees with you on the topic of the
| general election, but as you travel down the dependency
| chain (general election depends on primary depends on
| fundraising depends on capability to run), it becomes
| clear that money matters more. Effectiveness of spending
| at the roots of the dependency tree offers
| disproportionate effect on the final candidate choices in
| the general election, a general election that is likely
| already pre-decided based on demographic make up of
| constituents.
|
| So money's effect on the general election in many ways
| doesn't matter if money can decide who can even be an
| option in the primary, or which candidates can have their
| names heard before the primary.
|
| Excerpts from the article:
|
| > But in 2017, Bonica published a study that found,
| unlike in the general election, early fundraising
| strongly predicted who would win primary races.
|
| > Another example of where money might matter:
| Determining who is capable of running for elected office
| to begin with. Ongoing research from Alexander
| Fouirnaies, professor of public policy at the University
| of Chicago, suggests that, as it becomes normal for
| campaigns to spend higher and higher amounts, fewer
| people run and more of those who do are independently
| wealthy. In other words, the arms race of unnecessary
| campaign spending could help to enshrine power among the
| well-known and privileged.
|
| > The best time to donate is early on in the primary,
| Bonica said, when out-of-the-gate boosts in fundraising
| can play a big, causal role in deciding who makes it to
| the general election.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I don't have time to research this, but the distinction
| between primary and general election sounds reasonable.
|
| The stories this year about democrat money supporting
| wingnut republicans in the primaries are also in line
| with this.
| jedberg wrote:
| Salary history bans preclude the employer from asking _you
| and your current /former employer_ about your salary. It
| doesn't stop them from asking Equifax.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| It does in New York. History can't be purchased by an
| employer.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| How to freeze your work number (copied from reddit):
|
| Create an account using one of your employers (old or new, it
| doesn't matter). If you have problems with this step, then skip
| to step 2 and ask the CSR for help with this.
|
| Call the customer service at 866-222-5880 (FYI, it helps to
| call early in the morning when most people are asleep) Choose
| option 2 for "Report a problem..."
|
| Tell the customer service rep (CSR) that you want to freeze
| your SSN on TWN. Verbally verify that this will keep 3rd
| parties from accessing the info. At this point, the CSR may try
| to direct you to the online form, but you need to be firm and
| say that you want to complete the process over the phone. If
| they still try to direct you to the online form, say that you
| will not be satisfied until the process is completed over the
| phone. I know this can be uncomfortable for some folks to
| challenge someone like this, but it's the easiest way.
|
| At this point, the CSR will ask for personal information
| including your account name (created in step 1) SSN, DOB,
| address, email
|
| The rep will send you a one-time code using the method of your
| choice (phone, text, email, mail). I chose text message. Tell
| them the code verbally over the phone Congrats. Your SSN is now
| frozen on TWN, preventing 3rd parties from access without your
| authority. You will receive a confirmation email Optional
|
| 8) If your CSR was friendly and helpful, ask to speak with
| their manager and give them a little praise. Pull a reverse-
| Karen
|
| I prefer this method because it prevents you from having to
| mail or email any documents and you get instant confirmation
| and a case number to review your status. The whole process took
| like 10 minutes over the phone.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| See also https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-
| freeze/
| forgot_old_user wrote:
| >Keep in mind that a freeze could slow down application
| processes for things like a loan, a job, or social service
| benefits
|
| hmm.. what does that mean? I can be refused a loan if I
| forget to unfreeze before applying?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Refused, or asked to un-freeze. Depends on the banking
| institution.
| thewebcount wrote:
| Yes. This nearly happened to my spouse and I. It was such a
| pain in the ass. We froze our accounts after the Equifax
| breach. For some reason, I was able to unfreeze mine
| quickly and easily over the web, but for hers, they refused
| to do it over the web and _insisted_ on using postal mail.
| Meanwhile the loan officer was telling us that if we couldn
| 't get it unfrozen, they couldn't guarantee the rate they
| gave us and the loan could fall through. I forget exactly
| what happened, but once we received the letter in the mail
| we were able to call and get it lifted just before the time
| limit on the loan ran out. I would not want to go through
| that again. It's a terrible system.
| annexrichmond wrote:
| > those with 100 or more employees or contractors will have to
| report median and mean hourly pay rates by job category and "each
| combination of race, ethnicity, and sex."
|
| since excluding YOE could bias these values, I wonder if we will
| start seeing more granularity in job titles; Role I,II,III,
| Senior Role I,II,III
|
| also even at 100 employees, is that high enough such that it
| won't reveal individuals' salary, and thus a privacy violation?
| surely the bill most cover such an obvious counterexample
| jedberg wrote:
| > is that high enough such that it won't reveal individuals'
| salary, and thus a privacy violation
|
| Why do you consider that a privacy violation? I know in the US
| people are very touchy about it, but in other countries pay
| information is public. And pay for immigrants in the US is
| public as well (H1-B salary info is public). And also some
| companies have public salary information as well. And anyone
| who works for the government already has public salaries, as
| well as top executives at any public company.
|
| It feels like moving towards public salary information would go
| a long way towards addressing pay inequality.
| bombcar wrote:
| If everyone's pay was public, it wouldn't be a major issue
| and nobody would care.
|
| But if only a _few_ people 's pay ends up being public, it
| will cause issues.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Government employees pay is already public. I assume the
| only people with a problem with it know they are not worth
| as much more than others as their compensation suggests.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| > Why do you consider that a privacy violation?
|
| Because that is the culture in USA. You finding it weird is
| not a reason to be dismissive.
| vkou wrote:
| It's objectively weird that your salary is private, except
| to other employers, banks, landlords, lenders, your cable
| company, and literally anyone else who pays Equifax $30 to
| run a credit check on you.
|
| It's public for nearly anyone who matters, and private for
| nearly anyone who doesn't. It's public for nearly anyone
| who can use this information against you. It's private if
| you want to use it to benefit yourself.
| jedberg wrote:
| I never said I found it weird, nor was I being dismissive.
| I was asking OP to question their own assumptions. Their
| default assumption was "salary is private" and I wanted
| them to ask themselves why they feel that way.
| notinfuriated wrote:
| I suppose it's a good question, but I'd also ask people
| to justify why they think it isn't private.
|
| Really though, I haven't thought about this question
| much. I'll give it a shot:
|
| I were going on a first date, and the woman asked me as
| getting-to-know-you small-talk, "What is your annual
| salary?" I would find this off-putting. Same if I were
| meeting her parents sometime later and they asked me. I'd
| find it strange if a neighbor asked me, or if a used car
| salesman asked me, etc. My default assumption, if someone
| asks me my salary, is to think about _for what purpose
| would they want to know this information, as the
| knowledge of my salary would imply they intend to treat
| me differently based on my response._ (So in the case of
| a first date, I could say a number where she responds,
| "That's not enough for me!" and gets up to leave. Or for
| a car salesman, he might say, "Oh, well, this car is
| usually $15,000, but for you it is $16,000.")
|
| The only cases where I find this to be a reasonable
| request is when I'm applying for a loan or credit, as I
| think it's fair for underwriters to want to be able to
| calculate whether or not they think I'm good to pay them
| back (and, on my end, I'm expecting to receive
| temporarily-free money from them, so the transaction is
| not one-sided).
|
| Now, I don't think that's automatically the case with a
| law like this, but I don't think it's not the case
| either!
|
| So I have a continued expectation that my salary is
| Nunya. Unless someone can pose a convincing argument that
| it ought not be private, or if such a law would also
| prohibit my employer or others treating me differently
| with the knowledge of my salary, I will not support laws
| like these.
| jedberg wrote:
| The first date question is interesting. I have two
| answers. First, it's a different context. A salary
| negotiation and a date are two very different things. But
| secondly, would it be so bad to get that out of the way
| up front? If one of her deal breakers is, "needs to make
| enough money" isn't it better if you both learn that
| sooner than later and not waste time?
|
| And let me also throw this out there: If you own a house,
| the amount you paid for it and its current value are
| public information. In theory anyone with your address
| can see how much you paid for your house. If it was
| recent, they can probably guess your salary too. Do you
| think home values should be private?
|
| In the case of both home values and salary, having it
| public helps everyone, because it balances the
| information in the marketplace (of homes and employees).
|
| Employees win when they have more information about
| salaries of other people.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Unless someone can pose a convincing argument that it
| ought not be private
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_(market)
|
| > Transparency is important since it is one of the
| theoretical conditions required for a free market to be
| efficient
|
| How should high schoolers know which skills to pour their
| time and energy into acquiring if they do not have
| information about which way labor prices are moving?
| notinfuriated wrote:
| Isn't this achieved from something like the CA law
| proposed but without demographic data?
|
| At a past job, they anonymized company survey data at
| various levels including not sharing demo breakdowns in
| data if a person was on a team with fewer than four
| members or something like that. I'd be open to a law like
| the one in CA with the stipulation that demo breakdown
| data won't be shared if it represents two or fewer
| employees in a group.
|
| Market transparency is good and can be achieved to some
| extent without knowing an employee's exact salary.
|
| I'll add that I've also worked with envious people who
| would potentially treat their coworkers in a hostile
| manner if they perceive some unfair imbalance in their
| pay, rather than seeking a new job or taking it out on an
| employer. For some, there is a crabs-in-a-bucket
| mentality.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| My preference would have been to simply require publicly
| posted job ranges on job listings. I would not even need
| maximum pay, the minimum pay would be enough info.
|
| Although I would have required including health insurance
| metal level and subsidy percentage and 401k match, since
| they are significant and easy to predict/measure
| components of compensation.
|
| The demographic stuff is a waste of time and potentially
| harmful, in my opinion.
|
| > I'll add that I've also worked with envious people who
| would potentially treat their coworkers in a hostile
| manner if they perceive some unfair imbalance in their
| pay, rather than seeking a new job or taking it out on an
| employer. For some, there is a crabs-in-a-bucket
| mentality.
|
| I feel like this mentality would get rectified quickly.
| There are many jobs with publicly known disparities in
| pay that function properly, such as finance, tech, and
| government. It will be a problem initially due to having
| to reconfigure people's expectations, but after that it
| should be fine.
| 0x457 wrote:
| It's not weird, but the reason you find it a privacy
| violation is that you're told so by employees (directly or
| indirectly. Employees are the only side to benefit from you
| being secretive about it.
|
| There are really not that many reasons to hide it, unless
| you're lying to someone about it.
|
| I've used knowledge of someone's salary to tilt negotiation
| in my favor multiple times.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| Just to expound for a bit, labor market efficiency would be
| increased by income transparency. We all want our markets
| operating with as few distortions as possible, right?
| timr wrote:
| You don't need an individual's salary to "address pay
| inequality". You need statistics along the axes of inequality
| that you choose to care about (which is another discussion
| altogether...)
|
| Pointing out (rightly) that H1B salaries are public is not a
| great argument; I think it's pretty lousy that we publish the
| salaries of individual immigrants. We should stop doing that,
| and publish anonymized data instead.
|
| But at the end of the day, there's no law of the universe
| that any piece of information should or shouldn't be public.
| These are cultural norms, and fairly debated.
| stefan_ wrote:
| That's funny; this "cultural norm" only seems to exist when
| employees are concerned, while _employers_ of course share
| your salary history widely and frequently. Equifax "The
| Work Number" boasts some 573 million records, of which they
| have leaked at least 170 million in the past. It seems you
| are getting played; markets, of course, profit from optimal
| information.
| kbelder wrote:
| > those with 100 or more employees or contractors will have to
| report median and mean hourly pay rates by job category and
| "each combination of race, ethnicity, and sex."
|
| I would have ambivalent feelings about the law without this,
| but with this I vehemently oppose it.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Hourly pay rates is another one that is likely problematic.
| Salaried people may work more hours without them being tracked.
| Bilal_io wrote:
| Serious question: which law protects salary information? And if
| this law exists, does it apply to employers only or does it
| extend beyond that?
| cj wrote:
| No law protects salary information AFAIK.
|
| Employers can disclose them if they choose (but they don't
| for obvious reasons) and many (most?) employees prefer to not
| have the world know what their salary is.
| dbingham wrote:
| I am not a lawyer, but I'm not aware of any such law. Public
| employee salaries are already publicly posted. You can look
| up the salaries of any public employee - including those at
| state universities, municipalities, etc
|
| Honestly, I think we'd all be better off if corporations were
| required to publicly post not just salaries but _all_
| financial information. I think we should have an open books
| law. It would help level the playing field in all manner of
| negotiations, make it easier to study the economy and find
| out what 's really going on, and would make it much, much
| harder to get away with corporate malfeasance. It wouldn't
| give any particular corporation a competitive advantage over
| any other because they would all have each other's
| information.
| weaksauce wrote:
| pay secrecy really only helps to make employers more money
| while punishing the people that aren't as good at
| negotiating that one week of their life that they did it at
| that job.
|
| just like tying healthcare to an employer only really
| benefits the employer and not the people. (people accept
| jobs that they otherwise wouldn't take because "they need
| the insurance" etc.)
| peter422 wrote:
| Exactly. Private salaries only benefit employers.
| spamizbad wrote:
| > Serious question: which law protects salary information?
| And if this law exists, does it apply to employers only or
| does it extend beyond that?
|
| None. Incidentally your ability to communicate your salary is
| protected by the first amendment and various labor laws: Your
| employer cannot prevent you from sharing your salary
| information with anyone (which makes sense: it's required on
| a ton of forms)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Also protected by labor law.
|
| https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/your-
| right...
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > which law protects salary information?
|
| To my knowledge, none. There are some laws that exist about
| some groups (e.g. the IRS) disclosing salary data. But there
| are whole data-broker businesses built around getting
| salaries reported to them from employers and using that data.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| Even if it were, how bad is public salary info?
|
| For h1b holders that info is mildly public:
| https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=google&job=software+engine...
|
| In Washington state, all public employee salary information is
| not anonymous at all: https://fiscal.wa.gov/salaries.aspx
|
| Companies already pay to get explicit salary info:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29834753
|
| When companies have access to wage info, but workers don't,
| that creates asymmetric information in favor of businesses.
|
| In exchange for giving up some privacy, my negotiating power,
| and therefore theoretically my ability to negotiate pay goes
| up.
|
| I would rather have my salary public than to potentially be
| underpaid by several tens of thousands of dollars.
| mancerayder wrote:
| It will lead to some workaround. A bigger part of the pay in the
| form of bonuses or discretionary grants, for example.
|
| What exactly does posting race and gender data accomplish
| exactly, specifically?
|
| Some countries (including one that coined the term Liberty,
| Equality, Fraternity) ban the use of gender and race statistics
| in the interest of equity.
|
| Is California a more equitable state than other states? Will this
| bill make it less inequitable?
|
| Are these questions being considered.
| awb wrote:
| > It will lead to some workaround. A bigger part of the pay in
| the form of bonuses or discretionary grants, for example.
|
| How will existing commission-based compensation be reported,
| like sales and recruiting jobs?
| darth_avocado wrote:
| This is exactly what is happening right now in Colorado.
|
| 1. Pay ranges are visible for a job. However, the ranges are
| very wide in some cases, almost $200k wide. What am I to learn
| from this if I get offered the mid point, but almost everyone
| else is earning the max limit? Pay ranges are useless without
| seeing the distribution.
|
| 2. Equity isn't included in this (or any other govt processes)
| because it is not considered "guaranteed pay". Especially in
| tech where equity is a big part of your compensation, it's very
| hard to use this data in any meaningful way.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| So... a simple-minded law not only didn't fix the problem it
| was supposed to solve, but actually made things worse? Ah,
| government.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| CO's wage transparency law does fix one problem, which is
| inefficient allocation of labor resources due to lack of
| price transparency.
|
| Markets cannot allocate resources most efficiently without
| market participants having knowledge of price movements.
| peter422 wrote:
| How is it worse?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > What am I to learn from this if I get offered the mid
| point, but almost everyone else is earning the max limit? Pay
| ranges are useless without seeing the distribution.
|
| You learn not to apply to jobs with low minimum ranges, and
| high school students learn not to study fuels with low
| minimum and low high ranges.
|
| The law is not for you, specifically to help you negotiate
| maximum pay from one job. For that, you need to go out and
| sell your labor to multiple parties and have them bid against
| each other.
| asabjorn wrote:
| > What exactly does posting race and gender data accomplish
| exactly, specifically?
|
| It enables third parties to calculate ESG scores more easily
| using data that would otherwise have to be voluntarily
| relinquished. The S in ESG stands for compliance with the woke
| social justice agenda. ESG essentially means compliance with
| the agenda of the powers creating the score, so coal and
| weapons manufactorers have a high score.
|
| The companies can be financially pressured by pension and index
| funds that illegally use cartel behavior to push the incredibly
| unpopular ESG. Expect those pension funds assets to trend
| towards negative real returns as companies start prioritizing
| politics over sensible business decisions. E.g. blackrock,
| vanguard, most state and federal pension funds.
| joe-collins wrote:
| Many, many jobs are only paid in straight wages. No commission,
| no bonuses. This bill will highlight the gap between the
| lowest-paying jobs and skilled trades, and induce pressure on
| workers to skill up (they see exactly how much they're missing
| out on) and on low-pay employers to offer more (because some of
| their workers are freshly motivated to jump ship).
| r00fus wrote:
| > Some countries (including one that coined the term Liberty,
| Equality, Fraternity) ban the use of gender and race statistics
| in the interest of equity.
|
| So what does a different jurisdiction (e.g. France) have to do
| with a California law? I posit nothing will change, job
| reporting/requirements are highly dependent on jurisdiction,
| and companies are well versed in juggling those differences.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "What exactly does posting race and gender data accomplish
| exactly, specifically?"
|
| Depends on what the data says and who you ask.
|
| My own assumption, based on the exclusion of many data points,
| is that it will be used as political ammunition for further
| wage laws based on personal characteristics/identity. Perhaps
| along with that, it will catch some abusive employers, or
| prompt underpaid employees to quit.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| It will probably result in paying majorities less to appease
| the mob that this metric was written for.
| kbelder wrote:
| I imagine there will be pressure to ensure that each of
| those categories, and _especially_ combinations of those,
| will not be paid at least average.
|
| And the nature of averages being what they are, and the
| unfortunate impossibility of paying everybody average or
| better, the larger groups will need to be managed downward.
| elil17 wrote:
| >will be used as political ammunition for further wage laws
| based on personal characteristics/identity
|
| Like what? I don't really see what further laws California
| could have within the current EEO framework. This seems
| targeted at transparency and enforcement.
| renlo wrote:
| In California they tried to add an amendment to allow race-
| based preferential treatment for the UCs (etc) [1]. It
| failed, but just putting this out there to better
| understand the milieu and how it _could_ be used.
|
| [1] https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_16,_Repe
| al_Pr...
| gs7 wrote:
| The article doesn't mention it, but according to
| https://www.calpeculiarities.com/2022/09/27/sb-1162-approved...,
| this will go in effect on January 1, 2023.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| Has anyone published a review of the actual-in-practice effects
| of ...Colorado I think it was? doing the same thing a little
| while ago?
| Bilal_io wrote:
| I don't have a review to reference, but I've heard that certain
| companies stopped hiring in Colorado, they even explicitly
| excluded Coloradoan in their job listings. Here is a website
| tracking companies that do it:
| https://www.coloradoexcluded.com/
| jedberg wrote:
| It'll be a lot harder to exclude California, which represents
| 10% of the population, and even more of the population of
| professionals who can work remotely.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| And NYC starts Nov 1. And WA state starts Jan 1. And NY
| state is just waiting on governor's signature, which after
| 270 days will start.
|
| So CO/NYC/WA/CA will be ~62M Americans, and if NY gets
| added, ~74M Americans.
| burnhamup wrote:
| I saw the Colorado excluded in job postings in the immediate
| aftermath.
|
| I'm starting to see more and more companies listings a
| Colorado salary range in recent listings.
| mountainriver wrote:
| I'm not sure how I feel about this. On one hand it could aid in
| reducing pay inequality and on the other it seems really
| restrictive to hiring.
|
| If I apply for a job and am overqualified so they want to pay me
| more, can they do that?
| pessimizer wrote:
| I have no idea, but they could avoid that by posting a salary
| range that includes when they want to hire people who are
| overqualified.
| thomaslangston wrote:
| 1. The listed pay range can be any size. So they could put any
| number they want for the top end for overqualified applicants.
|
| 2. They can create a new position at any time with a higher
| range and offer you that position.
| [deleted]
| brg wrote:
| CEO salary transparency caused a rapid increase in C-level
| compensation, nearly 10 fold as it became a public race.
|
| https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2020/
| frellus wrote:
| "SB 1162 doesn't make clear how the law applies to companies that
| employ workers remotely"
|
| There is always going to be a push/pull with regulations.
| Considering the above statement, thinking about regulatory
| burdens, companies may try to work around them and, if necessary,
| hire people out of state to avoid reporting.
|
| So let's forget about diversity for a second in terms of gender
| and race and pretend it doesn't factor into decision making at
| all: Companies want to hire competitively; the want the best,
| experienced worker for the least cost possible.
|
| Anyone who thinks companies hire without regard to cost is living
| in a fantasy land and they flunked Econ 101.
|
| So what will happen as a result of this bill? Companies will
| report their average wages and make it hard to find because an
| "average" means that some people are above it, some are below it.
| If everyone who see's they're "below" the average demands at
| least a match to the 'average', guess what!?? The average
| changes! Because there were people who were paid above average.
|
| Of course, everyone should be paid fairly based on skill, but I'm
| sorry -- one of those skills happens to be negotiation. If we
| want everyone to be paid the same, we shall all be dragged
| downward, not upward. I, for one, don't _want_ to be paid the
| average, I want a high salary -- but not so high that I 'm the
| top paid person (because guess what happens when a company has to
| cut expenses?)
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > If everyone who see's they're "below" the average demands at
| least a match to the 'average', guess what!?? The average
| changes! Because there were people who were paid above average.
|
| Another option is the employer denies the employee's request
| for a raise.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| That sounds true. In practice I've been talking with people
| about their paybands for years and everyone understands that
| sometimes they will be below their payband's midpoint. In
| dozens of conversations like this that hasn't been a problem
| even once. The key is though to be able to explain why someone
| is placed in the payband where they are. Understanding where
| your employees stand and what they need to work on to progress
| is a key manager competency.
| jmyeet wrote:
| Quite a few commenters note (correctly) that non-salary
| compensation is a big part of tech compensation. This law isn't
| for you. This law is for "normal" jobs. Teachers, admin
| assistants, truck drivers, nurses, logistics people, etc. These
| are jobs that are almost entirely salary or an hourly wage for
| which pay transparency is incredibly useful in stopping people
| getting taken advantage of.
|
| To show you how this matters a lot of remote jobs were previously
| advertised as "not available to residents of Colorado". Why?
| Because Colorado had a similar pay transparency requirement.
| California is a much bigger fish so it's going to be much harder
| to do this. If you have Oregon, Washington, New York and the
| Northeast follow suit it'll become a de facto norm in non-
| disclosing states.
|
| I fully support empowering workers.
| awb wrote:
| > Under the law, employers with 15 or more workers will be
| required to include pay ranges in job postings
|
| I wonder how this will work with small, remote-friendly companies
| hiring a CA employee and forgetting (or not knowing) to put a
| salary range on their job post.
|
| What's the financial / legal consequence?
| r00fus wrote:
| Having read all the details it's not clear that this applies to
| non-CA incorporated companies hiring remote workers who happen
| to reside in CA (or move to CA).
|
| I'm not even sure how they could enforce in that case,
| honestly. If you're incorporated in CA, it's pretty clear you
| have CA state requirements to comply with.
| cyberlurker wrote:
| Not sure of the answer but I have seen job postings with a
| special Colorado salary range to comply with their law.
| fictionfuture wrote:
| This is scary for employers and might be the most misguided move
| California's made yet. Going to be a "whooshing" sound of
| companies headed East...
|
| Idealism should not trump rationality; I cannot believe this
| actually passed into law
| scrumbledober wrote:
| California is a pretty huge talent pool to ignore, especially
| with Colorado already passing a similar law and many other
| states moving similar bills through legislature.
| r00fus wrote:
| Let those companies that want to ignore 10% of the workforce go
| ahead. I'd say that's more idealist than complying with similar
| laws already enacted in other states as well.
| LinkLink wrote:
| Now you can see which California jobs pay you enough to afford
| living there! Big news for all the CEO's out there.
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