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Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

nytimes.com

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Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#671

Post by iopq »

codeddesign wrote: post #560
blazespin wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coding is definitely higher value for sure, just as driver who operates a berry picking machine can deliver more value than a migrant individually picking berries.

Why a migrate rather than say someone who picks berries by hand? Vice did a story comparison on this and actually migrate workers worked harder and picked more fruit than Americans pulled from temp agency. But in your comparison, the machine would be of higher value, the operator would be of little value since it does not take extensive skill to operate - much less skill than someone working on power lines for exampl…

Anybody can pick cherries by hand, but a bad machine operator could damage it and cause losses to your farm.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#672

Post by gaius »

avindroth wrote: post #634
erikpukinskis wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the monetary difference between an average road and a really great road is not nearly as much as the difference between an average system and a really great system. Pick another profession then. How about customer support? The difference between an average support person and a really great one can be millions of dollars of revenue. But they are paid peanuts because it's women's work, not like the manly engineering…

The difference between an average and a great customer support is not millions of dollars in revenue. You are thinking about the difference between a terrible and a great customer, and with 1 in a million scenario. There are some situations where great customer support brings the company tremendous value and opportunity. But these situations are so rare and few that investing in great customer support (for high price…

Of course it is. Everyone remembers getting shitty offshore technical support from company X then a few years later you're the engineer making recommendations or the CTO signing off POs and you think "I will never deal with X again".

I've got my list, I bet everyone reading this can think of their own X's too...

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#673

Post by iopq »

rimantas wrote: post #655
PhilWright wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing unique or special about being a programmer. Programmers think they are undervalued and should get more. But guess what, nurses think they should get more as well because they are saving lives. Soldiers think they should get more for making us all safe. Police think they should get more for reducing the level of crime in society which benefits us all. Teachers think they should get more because they a…

> There is nothing unique or special about being a programmer. Really? Take 1000 programmers and try to teach them skills nurses have. How many will be able to do the job well enought to be able to work at the hospitals? Now take 1000 nurses and try to teach them skills programmers have. Is the number suitable for profession work at sowftware companies be the same, as in the first case? You can claim, that there is n…

> How many will be able to do the job well enought to be able to work at the hospitals?

None of them, because programmers hate working with people so they'd all quit.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#674

Post by Consultant32452 »

twblalock wrote: post #666
Consultant32452 wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's noble to be charitable with someone else's money, especially when that someone else is already at the poverty level.

Poverty is relative. What we call poverty is a lot more comfortable, and safer, than the conditions the immigrants came from. We haven't eliminated poverty in this country because we keep moving the goalposts.

If you're concerned then send your own money, don't advocate policies that take it from our poorest.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#675

Post by rmc »

mandlar wrote: post #185
skolos wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Works well until an employer does due diligence (ask for proof of your number). In my experience many (not all) do due diligence.

How are they going to verify your current salary? Do companies really go out of their way to do that?

In countries where the employer does the tax for the employee, then the employer will see how much tax has been paid earlier in the year. They can deduce salary from that.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#676

Post by twblalock »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #670
twblalock wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the paragraph immediately following the sentence you quoted: > The impact on everyone else, though, is surprisingly positive. Giovanni Peri, an economist at the University of California, Davis, has written a series of influential papers comparing the labor markets in states with high immigration levels to those with low ones. He concluded that undocumented workers do not compete with skilled laborers — instea…

So your argument is that it's okay that we've made it worse for the people who already had it the hardest because the rest of the more wealthy people in the country benefitted from it? Sorry, but that doesn't make it better. As for the rest of your post, my comment implied a context of the moral an legal framework currently in place in the US and most countries people would actually want to live in. But you're willin…

> So your argument is that it's okay that we've made it worse for the people who already had it the hardest because the rest of the more wealthy people in the country benefitted from it?

Where did I write that? I included the excerpt from the article to demonstrate your intellectual dishonesty in selectively quoting a single sentence from an article that is positive about the effects of immigration. I did not make any moral judgments anywhere in my comment. Quite the contrary -- I argued that a moral judgment in this situation was not possible to make.

What legal framework have I dismissed which determines what someone deserves to earn, aside from the minimum wage?

We are debating the same thing. I'm arguing that your assertions have no basis. If you don't know what is fair, you cannot know if someone is treated fairly or not.

You have no basis for your claim that some people are paid less than they deserve to be paid, unless you know what they deserve to be paid, and can demonstrate that what they are actually paid is a lower number than what they deserve to be paid. That's not a vague argument. It is very clear. It's also not existentialist, and if you think it is, you don't know what existentialism is.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#677

Post by piaste »

lukejduncan wrote: post #385
bargl wrote: post #44

I hate this question. I frequently dodge or outright deny answering it. I won't lie about it, I just say, no you don't get that information. To dodge this question I say the following: "I'm looking for compensation in the range of xxxx to XXXX. This obviously depends on the benefits packages, for an awesome benefits package you may be closer to xxxx, if your benefits are bad then you'll need to be closer to XXXX." If…

I've followed this advice in the past with mixed results. Some companies do a great job of either respecting this or not asking in the first place. When I interviewed at Uber (a little more than a year back), the recruiter was super persistent. I told them "I understand why you're interested, but it's my personal preference at the advice of personal mentors, not to disclose that information. If we both like each othe…

> "OK, we can do that. But we have a policy of always making the lowest possible offer to candidates who won't share their compensation information. I just want the best for you."

"OK, you can do that. But I have a policy of always turning down offers that are too low for the role and benefits involved. I just want the best for me."

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#678

Post by twblalock »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #674
twblalock wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poverty is relative. What we call poverty is a lot more comfortable, and safer, than the conditions the immigrants came from. We haven't eliminated poverty in this country because we keep moving the goalposts.

If you're concerned then send your own money, don't advocate policies that take it from our poorest.

I never advocated a policy. Why do you think I did? You are reading a lot into my comments that isn't there.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#679

Post by avindroth »

gaius wrote: post #672
avindroth wrote: post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between an average and a great customer support is not millions of dollars in revenue. You are thinking about the difference between a terrible and a great customer, and with 1 in a million scenario. There are some situations where great customer support brings the company tremendous value and opportunity. But these situations are so rare and few that investing in great customer support (for high price…

Of course it is. Everyone remembers getting shitty offshore technical support from company X then a few years later you're the engineer making recommendations or the CTO signing off POs and you think "I will never deal with X again". I've got my list, I bet everyone reading this can think of their own X's too...

Of course it is.

What do you mean by it? That the difference between great and average technical support is worth millions of dollars in revenue?

Everyone remembers getting shitty offshore technical support

This seems hardly generalizable, but beyond that, I agree with you. Shitty tech support is never excusable.

Pay for average or above-average tech support. Those you can train in less than a month.

Don't break your back paying for "great" tech support. This is a silly directive, because it's so obvious once you are in the shoes of an executive, having to recognize tradeoffs in every decision. Unless your company is large enough where the tradeoffs make sense, paying for stellar tech support is an inane investment.

You can say a lot to the leader as a follower, but once you start leading, you must dance around the intricacies of decisionmaking.

EDIT: Not quite sure, but your assertion based on the so-called "list" of shitty tech support seems to be a case of selection bias.

There were probably many cases of reasonable tech support, but you haven't made a list of them :P

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#680

Post by afandian »

dijit wrote: post #656
afandian wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious? There's more to customer support than picking up a phone. I've worked with some very intelligent customer support people who know the product as well as the engineers.

You never put your most technical people on the first line. And in that vein, I've worked with some very skilled receptionists. But they're not doctors.

Depends on the value of the customer. I've seen some very switched-on first-line support dedicated to high-value customers.

Anyway erikpukinskis didn't say public-facing.

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