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Philadelphia Poised to Ban Employers from Asking Hires About Salary History

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Re: Philadelphia Poised to Ban Employers from Asking Hires About Salary History

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A free market is defined as an exchange where both sides have access to the same information. Its free as in freedom; to do anything. You are free to ask anyone about anything anytime. You can do anything except be physical aggresive (like states). > Even fervent laissez-faire economists admit the necessity of appropriate regulations: contract enforcement rules, avoidance of monopolies, a system of law and order fo…

That's the logical extreme, but that is not what free market economists actually say. The GP is accurate. The free market is a great tool, but no tool is universal. Why are we more concerned that we stick to an ideology - it's treated as a fundamentalist religion, treated as the solution to every problem and something with which any disagreement or deviation must be shot down - and not the people who are rich or poor…

There is no such thing as "free market economists". That was halfly my point. They are statists in disguise.

> Why are we more concerned that we stick to an ideology - it's treated as a fundamentalist religion, treated as the solution to every problem and something with which any disagreement or deviation must be shot down - and not the people who are rich or poor, safe or suffering, educated or not, healthy or not, etc.

You are imagining. I am claiming no such things.

Re: Philadelphia Poised to Ban Employers from Asking Hires About Salary History

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does such a law makes things harder for you as a hiring manger?

Because you have to get someone all the way to an offer until you know what their salary expectations are. I think it's a good rule, but it is harder for managers. Especially managers who want to find a cheap hire.

If I understand it correctly, the rule does not forbid asking salary expectations up front.

Re: Philadelphia Poised to Ban Employers from Asking Hires About Salary History

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, be careful not to generalize this to all libertarians... Most libertarians have varying stances that all develop from the non-aggression principle ("in a free society, you have the freedom to do whatever you want so long as it does not infringe on the rights of anybody else.") I have never heard a compelling argument against the NAP, because it can be interpreted so broadly. Even some of the pro-no-asking-…

> in a free society, you have the freedom to do whatever you want so long as it does not infringe on the rights of anybody else. Thats not NAP if rights is anything but right to be not physically assulted. NAP is basically: do no (physical) harm. You not only allowed to be aggressive in other ways (such as economically) but its relied upon to tackle overly powerful entities (like megacorps).

I think 'physical assault' is a very simplistic view of the NAP; and I fall on the other end of the scale where indirect damage through social/economic/environmental channels can be considered to infringe on liberty. Slander laws, noise ordinances, and non-localized environmental pollution all fall into this category and are eligible to be addressed through regulations which actually improve liberty. However, not being allowed to ask questions does not fall in this category in my opinion.

Re: Philadelphia Poised to Ban Employers from Asking Hires About Salary History

#155
post #7

An important detail: Comcast, backed by the local Chamber of Commerce, has threatened to sue the city over this law. On what basis? The corporation's Constitutional First Amendment free speech right to ask the question: http://www.investopedia.com/news/comcast-threatens-sue-city-... Are these the same free speech rights the Supreme Court recently bestowed on the corporations? I remember that at the time legal analyst…

In this particular case, you would emphasize the distinction between speech and general commercial activity. Citizens United says you can't prohibit political speech just because it was via a corporate entity or paid for with a lot of money. But the actual case was about an anti-Hillary Clinton movie. And subsequent applications of the law have concerned things like campaign advertising (e.g. all things that look like traditional political speech).

In this case, we're dealing with a condition of employment. Even if we consider it "speech", it's commercial, not political in nature, which courts could use to distinguish from the Citizens United precedent.

Re: Philadelphia Poised to Ban Employers from Asking Hires About Salary History

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in a free society, you have the freedom to do whatever you want so long as it does not infringe on the rights of anybody else. Thats not NAP if rights is anything but right to be not physically assulted. NAP is basically: do no (physical) harm. You not only allowed to be aggressive in other ways (such as economically) but its relied upon to tackle overly powerful entities (like megacorps).

I think 'physical assault' is a very simplistic view of the NAP; and I fall on the other end of the scale where indirect damage through social/economic/environmental channels can be considered to infringe on liberty. Slander laws, noise ordinances, and non-localized environmental pollution all fall into this category and are eligible to be addressed through regulations which actually improve liberty. However, not bei…

> I think 'physical assault' is a very simplistic view of the NAP

Its simple by design. Its easiest to get universel consent.

> I fall on the other end of the scale where indirect damage through social/economic/environmental channels can be considered to infringe on liberty. Slander laws, noise ordinances, and non-localized environmental pollution all fall into this category and are eligible to be addressed through regulations which actually improve liberty. However, not being allowed to ask questions does not fall in this category in my opinion.

Sure you can create such contract. But it cannot be called NAP. Otherwise it will lead to miscommunication.

Re: Philadelphia Poised to Ban Employers from Asking Hires About Salary History

#157
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comcast is simply the example here. Yes you can look for another employer, but if they are doing the same thing -- requiring disclosure of salary history -- then in aggregate this will put more negotiating power in the hands of employers and thus reduce workers' incomes.

Do you think market will forget this ? Govts seem to forget that despite being big, they are market actors themselves. And it wont be the Comcasts but many SMBs. In todays volatile world, noones existence is certain. And govts need to realize this soon before they spend all of their capitals like this.

I'm not sure I understand what side of things you're coming down on, but personally I'm in favor of tilting things somewhat more in favor of labor than they are now.

Partly this is because I don't think a market can function justly on a principle of enforced asymmetry and imbalance. As I see it, if we allow people to pool capital together to gain greater collective leverage than any of them would have individually, and reap greater returns as a result (also known as a corporation), we must also allow people to pool their labor together to gain collective leverage and reap greater returns (also known as labor unions, worker protections, etc.). Having one without the other does not appear ethically justifiable to me, and rigging laws to strengthen one significantly at the expense of the other is similarly unjustifiable.

Partly this is because of the relevant history. Much of what people have convinced themselves constitutes a "free market" was in fact deliberately rigged to artificially preserve and benefit one side (capital) at the expense of the other (labor). Look into employment law from the 1800s, for example, and it's very clearly designed to prevent competition between companies in the market and ensure they each can comfortably remain immune to several important market forces. But somehow we've idealized that period as one of "laissez-faire" and "free markets" despite it being nothing of the sort, and then whenever an attempt is made to un-rig the system we hear that it's bad for business, will kill business, will hurt business, is anti-business, etc. -- being in business for business' sake is not an end worth pursuing in itself, and if a business can't survive without the market rigged in its favor, well, the true free-market position is that that business shouldn't survive.

Re: Philadelphia Poised to Ban Employers from Asking Hires About Salary History

#158
post #9
post #2

Paywalled, so I can't read it. Curious if this would ban asking about even current salary. That will make things interesting in Philly.

Try hitting the "web" button under the link and navigating in through google. If that doesn't work, I made you a pastebin of the raw text: http://pastebin.com/kS5QPEiF

It seems like the WSJ has closed the HTTP Google referer paywall loophole. I've tried a couple of browsers/OSes over the last week and I can't view any articles. TY though for the pastebin.

Re: Philadelphia Poised to Ban Employers from Asking Hires About Salary History

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Sounds like the same argument people made against Wikipedia, which I consider to be a very legitimate source of information on average." It can not be "legitimate" and "on average".

> It can not be "legitimate" and "on average". I do believe you just made that up. Nothing is perfect, and yet there have been studies that show Wikipedia is more often factually correct than Encyclopedia Britannica, which was previously considered the gold standard. http://www.nature.com/nature/britannica/index.html Is the New York Times legitimate on average? I would say so. Are there mistakes from time to time? Ye…

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/legitimate

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/legitimate

I have nothing further to add to this thread.

Re: Philadelphia Poised to Ban Employers from Asking Hires About Salary History

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think market will forget this ? Govts seem to forget that despite being big, they are market actors themselves. And it wont be the Comcasts but many SMBs. In todays volatile world, noones existence is certain. And govts need to realize this soon before they spend all of their capitals like this.

I'm not sure I understand what side of things you're coming down on, but personally I'm in favor of tilting things somewhat more in favor of labor than they are now. Partly this is because I don't think a market can function justly on a principle of enforced asymmetry and imbalance. As I see it, if we allow people to pool capital together to gain greater collective leverage than any of them would have individually, a…

> we must also allow people to pool their labor together to gain collective leverage and reap greater returns (also known as labor unions, worker protections, etc.). Having one without the other does not appear ethically justifiable to me, and rigging laws to strengthen one significantly at the expense of the other is similarly unjustifiable.

And free-market does not stop them in any way. In fact FM give them most freedom. So FM favours/disfavours none.

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