Posted on 08/11/2016 6:13:52 AM PDT by reaganaut1
In a groundbreaking effort to close the wage gap between men and women, Massachusetts has become the first state to bar employers from asking about applicants’ salaries before offering them a job.
The new law will require hiring managers to state a compensation figure upfront — based on what an applicant’s worth is to the company, rather than on what he or she made in a previous position.
The bipartisan legislation, signed into law on Monday by Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, is being pushed as a model for other states, as the issue of men historically outearning women who do the same job has leapt onto the national political scene.
Nationally, there have been repeated efforts to strengthen equal pay laws — which are already on the books but tend to lack teeth — but none have succeeded so far. Hillary Clinton has tried to make equal pay a signature issue of her campaign, while Donald J. Trump’s daughter Ivanka praised her father for his actions on this issue when she spoke at the Republican National Convention.
By barring companies from asking prospective employees how much they earned at their last jobs, Massachusetts will ensure that the historically lower wages and salaries assigned to women and minorities do not follow them for their entire careers. Companies tend to set salaries for new hires using their previous pay as a base line.
“I think very few businesses consciously discriminate, but they need to become aware of it,” said State Senator Pat Jehlen, a Democrat and one of the bill’s co-sponsors. “These are things that don’t just affect one job; it keeps women’s wages down over their entire lifetime.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I find this story baffling. I’ve never been asked about my current salary in a job interview.
HR is right down there with the MSM for most hated.
I think the concept is great, but the idea that this is something that requires government intervention is a pathetic demonstration of nanny-state paternalism.
This is a terrible law, dude.
They are not necessarily trying to screw you, as you suggest.
If you want to hire someone to do some remodeling at your home, don’t you have a right to get several bids, then, using the info of the people you met and the cost assumptions they provided, YOU GET TO PICK which one you feel will be the best for the job? Maybe one of them has a slow time coming, and will do a quality job for less. Maybe one of them has been very busy on a big project, and will charge more.
The key here is that YOU GET TO SELECT the contractor that you employ. You are not forced by the government to pick the one that is charging “market rates”, just because there is some law.
This is the same for employers and employees.
Suppose you are doing a great job for the employer, and have some tremendous success with a project. Maybe the employer would consider paying a bonus, in appreciation. But now, the employer might feel that paying a bonus would not be within the “market value” for the job, so now you are screwed, due to the influence of the legislation.
Exactly. If they ask, tell them no. If they refuse to hire based on that, I didn't want to work there anyway.
You know what would be a good law? That employers HAVE to offer me a job. At the salary I want. With the hours I want. With the job title I want.
Don’t you think that would be wonderful?
HR is where most large organizations bury the affirmative action hires. In my experience some of the laziest people currently inhabiting the planet. Increasingly the job is nothing but racial and gender bean-counting to satisfy the government.
The reverse holds true if I am currently in a position with high pay but no opportunities for advancement.
It's no coincidence that the wealthiest people in private industry got rich by working outside this stupid bureaucratic idiocy. I know a guy in my industry who has done very well for himself. He's started about a half-dozen companies, then sold them a few years later before moving on to his next one. I once asked him how he knew it was time to sell a company and start over, and he said: "When I get big enough that I need an HR department."
I wanted to hire myself for my business but I was to expensive. My business can’t afford me so I will continue to work for free just like many other small business owners.
Apparently, there’s quite a large number of people here who’d support it also.
I disagree with this.Industry norms
for my industry are very, very distorted thanks to H21B visas, where the the big companies post ridiculous job requirements and use that as justification for saying "there aren't any US citizens to take the job" and getting the visas for foreign labor that will take the job at that price…
I can imagine that this is the case with other industries where they can get away with it.
HR is brutal when it comes to setting salaries for people. What are their qualifications to know about market rate salaries etc? Many of them come from labor and employment relations majors and are trying to use their position to right grievances regardless of qualifications blind to race etc.
I never gave a specific answer to those kind of questions. I always said that pay would be negotiated when I was actually offered the job
HR Managers with liberal arts degrees + reams of salary data dumped on them by Big 4 consulting firms = an absolute train wreck.
Yes, I know, from the frying pan into the fire!
Anyway, I can categorically state that there is no wage disparity between men and women. All our job titles come with a salary range (adjusted for geographical area) and make no distinction between gender, race or anything else.
Also, the contention that any reputable company would want to "lowball" a new hire by finding out what their current salary is and tying the offer to that is ridiculous when you think about it. The likely reason people apply to work at my company is that they want to better their current circumstances and further their career. The last thing we want to do is lowball our offers and bring people on board only to have them immediately seek higher paying work elsewhere once they find out what others are making in their position (and they will find out). The first 6 months of a typical new hire is mostly absorbed by training. We want these people to stay and make careers with us. So we pay competitive salaries commensurate with their skill levels.
Already our hiring practices are constrained by the government. We have to report on the amount of "minorities" we interview and then explain why we didn't hire them over some more qualified people. We want to be able to hire the best and brightest regardless of race and gender but government fights against that and tries to get us to take lesser qualified minorities at the expense of more qualified candidates. Once those minorities are hired, it is also much tougher to move them out if they don't work out.
I'm tired of the whole "minority" thing anyhow. Women are actually in the majority if you look at population statistics. I also think it's time to stop thinking of Asians, Hispanics and Blacks as "minorities" as they are well established in our nation and in very large numbers. In fact, Blacks have been here as long as White Europeans. Enough of the "minority" status already. Unless you personally came off the boat, you are an American. I don't care whether your parents, your grand-parents or your great-grandparents came off the boat.
If you were born here, you are an American and you are expected to speak good English and be just as qualified to obtain a job that you are qualified for as anybody else - and be paid the same salary range for that job as anybody else.
Amen. As an employer I establish a salary range for a job based on lots of factors. If someone applies for a position for which, according to them, they are grossly overqualified, it raises lots of red flags. Just a whole lot of variables involved in filing vacancies and it’s not cut and dried, although government regulations like to make it so.
You raise an excellent point.
If you think this Massachusetts law is overreaching, take a look at OFCCP. Most laymen don’t have a clue what that is anyhow.
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