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 ...
A lot of hot air and you didn’t answer the question to whether it is ethical to ask salary history.
Office of federal contract compliance. A bunch of do nothing, know nothing, affirmative action hires. It is, like most government jobs, a make work welfare program.
Without some laws, companies and organizations will ask about religion, guns, marital status, age, your social media accounts, political parties, whether you eat meat or not, etc. None of these have any bearing on most jobs.
Frankly, I really don’t care about recruiters. The vast majority merely scan for keywords and spam a mail-merge out to a vast list of recipients: a “throw it at the wall and see what sticks” approach.
99% of recruiter pitches I receive are utterly inappropriate. . .
The flip side of what you've said also holds true. If it were up to me, I'd like to ask questions about marital status, political parties, social media accounts, NRA membership, political party affiliation, etc.
To me, these things all do have a lot of bearing on most jobs.
HR is the real problem. . .
https://jebkinnison.com/2016/08/10/death-by-hr-who-staffs-hr-departments-mostly-women/
This is one of those “toehold” laws that will inevitably be expanded with actual parameters around quantities and percentages. It’s a slippery-slope law. Ultimately, the government should have no say-so in a salary dealing between employer and employee.
In general, I like this idea. Don't especially like the gov't mandating it, though.
I never, ever tell a prospective employer what I'm making. I expect a wage that's competitive in the current market. If they lowball me, or *demand* to know (had that happen before, too), then I likely don't want to work there.
Usually, it's the useless HR wonks that push that nonsense. Talking to people who actually run the company and do the hiring ... salary is usually a secondary concern. So long as we're close (they're not thinking 50K while I'm thinking 150K), negotiations with them are pretty easy.
This kind of comment makes me embarrassed that you are a Freeper.
1. Six of them were hired "anonymously" through a typical hiring process: post the job in various venues, review resumes, and hire the best candidate for the job.
2. Five of them were hired as "known quantities" through personal or professional connections (i.e., we knew who they were and wanted to hire them based on their skills, personality traits, etc.). For these five, we were legally required to go through the same song and dance as the first group, so we had to post these positions and go through the motions of pretending we were reviewing resumes, ranking candidates, etc.
Of the first group of 6 employees, 5 of them were gone within the first two years -- all of them due to some lack of skills, personality problems, or both.
Of the second group of 5 employees, 4 of them turned out to be stars and were key players in the department for a long time. The only one who didn't make it was someone whose hand had to be held all the time, and who didn't have a lot of initiative to improve on the job.
Based on my personal experience, I think HR rules and labor laws are a waste of a company's time and resources.
I never encountered any problems what so ever. But then I had a skill set specific to the job offered that most people don’t have. My resume spoke for itself....the interview was to see if I was puffing anything. Once the knew I wasn’t they told me what their best offer was (usually). I either took it or didn’t. Rarely was the much dickering. They knew the market and I knew the market. The companies that didn’t make any offer weren’t all that serious anyway
Most companies forbid telling salaries yet they demand candidates do just that.
OFCCP is slowly shutting down the “known quantities” group. Since the Government is convinced that all of your referral contacts are RAAAAACISTS!
Looks like the Massachusetts legislature is assuming the role of a third party collective bargainer.
When did I say we asked for salary history? We don’t.
Damn straight! What's wrong with transparency?
I never thought I'd say it, but I am now a union member. The front line supervisors at my office have inordinate power over my promotions, as the office managers we've had rarely leave their office.
I tried to play the game for nearly two years...silly me. I don't see it as a panacea, just about the only option left to level the playing field.
Yes, I've spoken to the office manager on several occasions, nothing positive came from those discussions.
IMHO, that's none of their damn business. It's a cheap trick to the detriment of the expected employee.
An unnecessary law. I never discussed my previous salary/rate. It has always been “I think this position and the job and responsibilities as described is worth X”. And stick to that line.
Never had an offer turned down because of that strategy yet!
If you think companies and organizations do not ask about these directly or indirectly, you need to get out more on the Internet and read the news stories. Queries on social media, for example, has led several states to prohibit such questions. A while back there was a report of a city in Montana requiring disclosure of all social media. These type of questions are invasive and, yes, it does take laws to put a stop to such nonsense.
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